The Maid of Australia

More a song about an imagined Australia than a true song of this land, but I thought I'd stretch the theme today. (It's also unlikely that the relationship unfolded in this way outside the imagination of the author).

Trad.





As I walked down by the Oxborough Banks
Where the maids of Australia do play their wild pranks,
By a shady green bower I sat myself down,
Where the birds sang so gaily, enchanting all round
In the forest of native Australia,
In the forest of native Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.

Oh I had not been long at that beautiful scene
Where the fields are delightful, the trees evergreen,
When a lovely young damsel to me did appear.
From the banks of the river she quickly drew near,
She's a native of happy Australia,
She's a native of happy Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.

She tore off her clothes and before me she stood
As naked as Venus just come from the flood.
She looked me in the face and smiling said she,
“This is the robe that nature gave me
On the day I was born in Australia,
On the day I was born in Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.”

She leapt in the water without fear or dread,
Her beautiful limbs she quickly outspread,
Her hair hung in ringlets, her colour was black,
“Kind sir, you can see how I swim on my back
In the stream of my native Australia,
In the stream of my native Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.”

Being tired of swimming she came to the bank,
“Assistance, kind sir, or I surely shall sink.”
Like lightning I flew, took her out by the hand,
My footing I lost and we fell on the sand.
She took me to the bush of Australia,
She took me to the bush of Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.

Oh we sported together in the highest of glee,
In the fairest Australia you ever did see.
My hair to her beautiful breast was inclined
Till the sun in the west all its glories resigned
To this beautiful maid of Australia,
To this beautiful maid of Australia,
Where the maidens are handsome and gay.


These notes from Mainly Norfolk:

[Roud 1872 ; trad.]

Harry Cox sang The Maid of Australia on the anthology Songs of Seduction (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 2; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1968), and in another recording by Leslie Shephard in Catfield, Norfolk, on October 9, 1965. That one was included in 1996 on the Topic anthology Hidden English: A Celebration of English Traditional Music, and in 2000 on his Topic CD box, The Bonny Labouring Boy. Steve Roud commented in the latter's sleeve notes:

This song of male wish-fulfilment has only rarely been reported in Britain—perpaps its risque subject-matter kept it out of collector's notebooks, but it is pretty mild by modern standards. The fact that all three known English versions are from East Anglian singers—Walter Pardon and Sam Larner being the other two—is most probably a coincidence. It is reported only once from Canada, but several times in the USA (see Guy Logsdon, The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing, 1989).

Peter Bellamy recorded The Maid of Australia during the sessions for his 1979 Topic LP, Both Sides Then, but it was left out and didn't find its way onto it before the CD reissue in 1992. The recording was included, however, on his 1983 cassette Fair Annie: English, Irish, Australian and American Traditional Songs, on the 1986 Fellside anthology Flash Company, and in 1999 on Free Reed's Peter Bellamy anthology, Wake the Vaulted Echoes.

Martin Carthy sang The Maid of Australia on Brass Monkey's fifth album Flame of Fire; this track was reissued on the anthology Evolving Tradition 4. He commented in the former record's sleeve notes:

I think of Maid of Australia as a sweet piece of Pre-Raphaelite fantasy and I think that it's true to say that it has only ever been found in Norfolk. What's sung here is a mixture of versions of Harry Cox and Walter Pardon, and according to the latter, the song was forbidden in certain pubs. The late and much lamented Peter Bellamy was the first person I heard actually singing it so there is a very large dollop of him to be found here. And thank him very much.


Mainly Norfolk also gives three alternative lyrics. I have chosen the Martin Carthy lyrics to my own arrangement.