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Waltzing Matilda Once a jolly swagman sat beside the billabong, Under the shade of a coolibah tree, And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong You'll come a waltzing matilda with me Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda You'll come a waltzing matilda with me And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong You'll come a waltzing matilda with me. Down came a jumbuck to drink beside the billabong Up jumped the swagman and seized him with glee And he sang as he tucked jumbuck in his tuckerbag You'll come a waltzing matilda with me Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda You'll come a waltzing matilda with me And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong You'll come a waltzing matilda with me. Down came the stockman, riding on his thoroughbred, Down came the troopers, one, two, three. "Where's the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tuckerbag? You'll come a waltzing matilda with me Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda You'll come a waltzing matilda with me And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong You'll come a waltzing matilda with me. Up jumped the swagman and plunged into the billabong, "You'll never catch me alive," cried he And his ghost may be heard as you ride beside the billabong, You'll come a waltzing matilda with me. | The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker making a crude cup of tea at a bush camp and stealing a sheep to eat. When the sheep's ostensible owner arrives with three police officers to arrest the worker, he drowns himself in a small lake and goes on to haunt the site. The lyrics contain many distinctively Australian words, some now rarely used in Australian English outside this song. These include: swagman a man who travelled the country looking for work. The swagman's "swag" was a bed roll that bundled his belongings. waltzing derived from the German term auf der Walz, which means to travel while working as a craftsman and learn new techniques from other masters before returning home after three years and one day, a custom which is still in use today among carpenters. Matilda a romantic term for a swagman's bundle. See below, "Waltzing Matilda." Waltzing Matilda from the above terms, "to waltz Matilda" is to travel with a swag, that is, with all one's belongings on one's back wrapped in a blanket or cloth. The exact origins of the term "Matilda" are disputed; one fanciful derivation states that when swagmen met each other at their gatherings, there were rarely women to dance with. Nonetheless, they enjoyed a dance, and so they danced with their swags, which was given a woman's name. However, this appears to be influenced by the word "waltz", hence the introduction of dancing. It seems more likely that, as a swagman's only companion, the swag came to be personified as a woman. Another explanation is that the term also derives from German immigrants. German soldiers commonly referred to their greatcoats as "Matilda", supposedly because the coat kept them as warm as a woman would. Early German immigrants who "went on the waltz" would wrap their belongings in their coat, and took to calling it by the same name their soldiers had used. billabong an oxbow lake (a cut-off river bend) found alongside a meandering river. coolibah tree a kind of eucalyptus tree which grows near billabongs. jumbuck a large difficult to shear sheep, not a tame sheep. Implies that the sheep was not 'owned' by the squatter or regularly shorn, thus not able to be stolen by the swagman. billy a can for boiling water in, usually 2-3 pints. tucker bag a bag for carrying food ("tucker"). troopers policemen. squatter Australian squatters started as early farmers who raised livestock on land which they did not legally have the right to use; in many cases they later gained legal use of the land even though they did not have full possession, and became wealthy thanks to these large land holdings. |