Australia's Answer

Words: W.T.Sievey
Music: J.B.Connolly



When the call went forth from England,
For men to raise the flag,
Australia's sons were ready
To hoist the dear old rag.
The Mother Country calling
Could never call in vain;
Australia's ready answer
Will always be the same.

Can you hear Australia marching
Her sons down to the sea?
She'll send her best and bravest
To fight 'gainst Germany;
That grand old flag of Union,
The good old Union Jack,
She'll carry across the ramparts,
And WHO shall drive her back?

Our men are sure and steady,
And we can always claim -
When Australia sends her sons out -
They are worthy of her name;
When our boys start in to battle,
They'll hoist the good old flag;
Midst shot and shell and rattle,
Australia's lads won't lag.

Can you hear Australia marching
Her sons down to the sea?
She'll send her best and bravest
To fight 'gainst Germany;
That grand old flag of Union,
The good old Union Jack,
She'll carry across the ramparts,
And WHO shall drive her back?

The Kaiser's threats don't harm us,
We are not afraid of war;
The good old British Empire
Has heard the same before.
The boast and bluff of tyrants,
We'll answer with our guns;
The bluffers will have less to say
When they meet Australia's sons.

Can you hear Australia marching
Her sons down to the sea?
She'll send her best and bravest
To fight 'gainst Germany;
That grand old flag of Union,
The good old Union Jack,
She'll carry across the ramparts,
And WHO shall drive her back?





The outbreak of World War One was met with a great outburst of enthusiasm and patriotism in Australia. From a population of fewer than five million, 416,809 men enlisted, of which over 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner. "Australia's Answer" was published in 1914. While perhaps not strictly a folk song, this is a fine example of the patriotic songs of the time, particularly with its references to Australian troops proudly carrying the Union Jack into battle.


A downloadable pdf of the original music for this song can be found at the National Library of Australia website.

Wallaby Stew

Cecil Poole





Poor Dad he got five years or more as everybody knows
And now he lives in Maitland Jail with broad arrows on his clothes
He branded all of Brown's clean skins and never left a tail
So I'll relate the family's woes since Dad got put in jail

Chorus:
So stir the wallaby stew
Make soup of the kangaroo tail
I tell you things is pretty tough
Since Dad got put in jail

Our sheep were dead a month ago not rot but blooming fluke
Our cow was boozed last Christmas Day by my big brother Luke
And Mother has a shearer cove for ever within hail
The family will have grown a bit since Dad got put in jail

Our Bess got shook upon a bloke he's gone we don't know where
He used to act around the shed but he aint acted square
I've sold the buggy on my own the place is up for sale
That wont be all that isn't junked when Dad comes out of jail

They let Dad out before his time to give us a surprise
He came and slowly looked around and gently blessed our eyes
He shook hands with the shearer cove and said he thought things stale
So he left him here to shepherd us and battled back to jail



NOTES:
The first version of this song that I heard referred to Boggo Road prison in Brisbane (rather than Maitland Jail in the original). I've used that lyric as Boggo Road is a prison that I visited regularly while working as a young lawyer in Brisbane in the early 1990s. The illustration above is of that jail.


Written by Cecil Poolein 1897 with the original title 'When Dad Comes Out of Gaol'. First published in the Bulletin that year. Printed in Stewart and Keesing's Old Bush Songs. Dr Percy Jones' included the song in his collection with this note, "Sung sixty years ago by a Mr Hulbert. Mrs E. Joan Bowran, Tallangatta".


From the sleeve notes of A.L.Lloyd's 1958 recording, Across the Western Plains:

Two young fellows who had been working on the Darling Downs were walking back home to Port Adelaide. Following the Lachlan River, they called in at a station for rations. The boss didn't like their looks and wanted them to move on, but the boy who did the butchering skinned a hamstrung lamb for them, and they rewarded him with a song about Wallaby Stew. Their song was tangled up with another called Country Gaol, ad it didn't make much sense. When they'd gone, the boy missed his good skinning knife, but he did recover the Wallaby Stew song, nearly thirty years later and twelve thousand miles away, when Edgar Waters of Sydney, on a visit to England, showed him a coherent set of words, probably from the collection of Percy Jones. The tune is widely known among seaman to the words of According to the Act (the influence of sailor tunes on Australian folk songs is worth studying). Perhaps the tune gained a readier foothold because it is related to the older and more handsome melody used for The Cockies of Bungaree.


MULTI-TRACKED ON A ZOOM H4 DIGITAL RECORDER.

The Indian Pacific

Slim Dusty





From coast to coast by night and day, hear the clickin' of the wheels
The hummin' of the diesel, of her ribbons of steel
Carryin' the memories of a nation built by hand
See the Indian Pacific span the land

She's the pride of all the railway men 'cross country where she flies
From blue Pacific waters to where the mountains rise
By lakes and wide brown rivers, through desert country dry
See the Indian Pacific passin' by

Chorus:
Oh the Indian Pacific she goes rollin' down the track
Five thousand miles to travel before she's there and back
Beside the line, a drover waves his battered old grey hat
And kids are catchin' yabbies down by the river flat
And a woman hangs her washing in a backyard near the line
As the Indian Pacific's rollin' by

Hear the whistle blowin' lonely 'neath the Nullabor star light
Saluting those who walk across the track she romps tonight
Callin' to the railway camp and the fettlers on the line
I'm the Indian Pacific, right on time

From the silver of the Broken Hill to old Kalgoorlie gold
She mirrors all the colours of the land so hard and old
Then the western clouds are blooming and the air is just like wine
And the Indian Pacific's makin' time

Chorus
Oh the Indian Pacific she goes rollin' down the track
Five thousand miles to travel before she's there and back
From the waters of the western sea to the eastern ocean sand
The Indian Pacific spans the land
Oh the Indian Pacific spans the land


The Indian Pacific travels from Sydney to Perth across the Nullarbor Plain. A great trip. Nicole and I finished the journey this morning.

For more info, visit the Great Southern Rail website.

The Ballad of Eureka

Words: Helen Palmer
Tune: Doreen Jacobs
1950



They're leaving ship and station,
They're leaving bench and fold,
And pouring out from Melbourne
To join the search for gold.

The face of town and country
Is changing ev'ry day,
But rulers keep on ruling
The old colonial way.

"How can we work the diggings
And learn how fortune feels
If all the traps forever
Are yelping at our heels?"

"If you've enough," says Lalor,
"Of all their little games,
Then go and get your licence
And throw it on the flames!"

"The law is out to get us
And make us bow in fear.
They call us foreign rebels
Who'd plant the Charter here!"

"They may be right," says Lalor,
"But if they show their braid,
We'll stand our ground and hold it
Behind a bush stockade!"

There's not a flag in Europe
More lovely to behold,
Than floats above Eureka
Where diggers work the gold.

"There's not a flag in Europe
More lovely to the eye,
Than is the blue and silver
Against a southern sky.

Here in the name of freedom,
Whatever be our loss,
We swear to stand together
Beneath the Southern Cross."

It is a Sunday morning.
The miner's camp is still;
Two hundred flashing redcoats
Come marching to the hill

Come marching up the gully
With muskets firing low;
And diggers wake from dreaming
To hear the bugle blow.

The wounded and the dying
Lie silent in the sun,
But change will not be halted
By any redcoats gun.


The Eureka Stockade was erected by miners in Victoria protesting against increased licence fees. It represented one of the first large-scale armed revolts against colonial authority. Although short-lived, it remains a vibrant feature of Australian history, romanticisedand adopted by the Left and by nationalists in various ways. There are many sources of information about the Eureka Stockade. This link is a reasonable starting point.

The Diamantina Drover

Hugh McDonald





The faces in the photograph have faded
And I can't believe he looks so much like me
For it's been ten years today
Since I left for Old Cork Station
Sayin' I won't be back till the drovin's done

For the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina
And a drover finds it hard to change his mind
For the years have surely gone
Like the drays from Old Cork Station
And I won't be back till the drovin's done

Well it seems like the sun comes up each mornin'
Sets me up and takes it all away
For the dreaming by the light
Of the camp fire at ni-ight
Ends with the burning by the day

For the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina
And a drover finds it hard to change his mind
For the years have surely gone
Like the drays from Old Cork Station
And I won't be back till the drovin's done

Sometimes I think I'll settle back in Sydney
But it's been so long it's hard to change my mind
For the cattle trail goes on and on
And the fences roll forever
And I won't be back till the drovin's done

For the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina
And a drover finds it hard to change his mind
For the years have surely gone
Like the drays from Old Cork Station
And I won't be back till the drovin's done

For the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina
And a drover finds it hard to change his mind
For the years have surely gone
Like the drays from Old Cork Station
And I won't be back till the drovin's done


Hugh's classic Australian song, quickly adopted into the folk scene both in Australia and Ireland.

Recorded with Nicole Murray on harmonies.

I Can't Abide

Trad/John Dengate




I can't abide the government's front bench, send them away to the Germans or the French
I can't abide Costello's shallow sneer - won't someone make the bastard disappear?

I can't abide that bloody awful Kemp, bring back the gallows, the hangman and the hemp
Take Peter Reith and dump him in the tide. Him I particularly can't abide

Poor little John deserves our sympathy, born neath the star of mediocrity
Pat his wee head and send him off to bed, then hide the key lest he abide with me

I can't abide the government's ministry, Senator Vanstone's worse than dysentry
Send her away without the least delay - dont pour the tea lest she abide with me

Sink them the swine, an iceberg would be fine. Far, far away in distant Hudson Bay
As they go down they'll warble while they drown, flat and off-key, they'll be despised by me

I can't abide the government's front bench, send them away to the Germans or the French
Take Peter Reith and dump him in the tide. Him I particularly can't abide


A great bit of political satire by John Dengate. Written during the fiercely divisive Australian waterfront dispute in 1998, between Patrick Stevedores and the Maritime Union of Australia. You'll find a review of events from one perspective in Tom Bramble'sWar on the Waterfront published by the Brisbane Defend Our Unions Committee.

Cast of characters:

"Poor little John" - John Howard (Prime Minister)
Peter Costello (Treasurer)
Peter Reith (Industrial Relations Minister)
David Kemp (Education Minister)
Amanda Vanstone (Employment Minister)

Fremantle Gaol

Trad.



Now beware all you wayward young fellows,
Take heed of my sorrowful tale;
Transported to Western Australia
For a convict in Fremantle Gaol

Chorus:
Oh my darling she cries every morning
Oh, my darling she cries every day

They told us to build our own prison,
A broad arrow dungeon of stone
With a high prison wall on the hilltop
And a cold narrow cell all alone

It's seven long years I've been taken,
I've been flogged with the chains that I've worn
What hope has a man without freedom
He'll wish that he never was born

There's a convict who struck down his gaoler,
From the quarries of labour he fled;
With the trackers and dogs in his footsteps
And a felon's reward on his head.

Now beware all you wayward young fellows
Take heed of my sorrowful tale
For tomorrow they take me and hang me
From the gallows of Fremantle Gaol.


To the tune of "Tarpaulin Jacket", from "The Wildflower Songsheet of Australian Ballads", printed in WA by Imperial Printing Co Pty Ltd (undated).