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Greetings forum members and may 2005 bring you all some experiences of inspiration and communal joy.
I have been absent for some months largely due to computer problems and lack of time to be bothered fixing them. Now I am back on line with a newly formatted drive and hopefully it will be some time or not at all that system corruption (or constipation) catches up with this old computer again. I have been busy teaching the rudiments of musical expression to adolescents once again and this has been both rewarding and frustrating. Such is the trials of engaging an old chap with youth and hoping for an educated outcome! During these past months of school service I have snatched a few moments to write a verse or 2; thus we have a recent song of some wry observations by an aging troubador on his land of birth.

Don't You Love Australia.

I remember well my younger days
Long summers and the old F.J.
Malibu boards and Seaford waves
Life and youth would forever stay.
From the cities on the coastal fringe
To the dusty, dry outback
We make our way down urban streets
On up the Birdsville track.

Chorus (a) Ah don't you love Australia
Blue skies and surfing breaks
Land of the perennial player
Beers, bar-b-ques, and sunbakes.

The myths and dreams we propagate
Mateship we hold so dear
The authority we abrogate
Stolen children we do not hear.
We settle into comfort zones
Spoon fed by pollies tricks
Through colour tellys in our homes
Behind walls of neuro' bricks.

Chorus (b) But don't you love Australia
Long hot summers by the sea.
The wide expansive azure
Where everyone wants to be.

Profits from the yellow-cake
Yeah we're sellin' it to the world
Hoping it won't return to us
As missiles self-propelled.
This land we guard so jealously
Stolen from the blacks
Who maintain a parkland embassy
In the capital of heart attacks.

Chorus (a)

As willing we follow Uncle Sam
From war to war pell mell
The middle east to Vietnam
On the rough highway to hell.
Poor old Ned, the matilda's waltz
Dark blood stains on the wattle
The Aussie dream, faith gone false
The common spirit- in a bottle.

Chorus (b) (c) J.W. 2004.

The music is an up tempo R&B style (almost) with a simple 4/4 rock beat.

Cheers, Witty Owl.

Welcome back, old chap

You've mentioned the ancient fear of being forgotten after our death somewhere else. and the modern fear of forgetting before our death.

At least I can take away from you the fear of being forgotten while you're alive & hopefully as violently kickin' and as inspired as ever.

Welcome back again. And I can almost hear the song...

tom

Witt, you should record it and post it here!!!
Georges.

Witty you old cynic! Great song with a truthful sting. Especially in light of the pollies latest antics.

Like the others, I think you should record it and post here. Can you do that?? Missed you round here

IC

And, you even give the reader room to breathe, and have a thought or two of their own , Witty ~ yet, one still must be specific when dealing with one's own, particular land, yes? Great job in showing me some sides of Australia, and I'd love to hear it, too!

~ Lizzy

Fellow members, thanks for the encouraging remarks and appreciating this old cynic's sense of humour.
I presume by comments re the recording and posting that there is now some way of posting music files here!? If so does it matter whether they are WAV, MP3 or whatever?
Glad to hear you are still breathing Liz. Those busy breathing are not busy dying.

A few notes for those not Aussie.
An FJ is a 1950's holden motor car. An Australian made icon.
"Stolen children" refers to the practice by the govt. in the early and mid 20th.C of removing aboriginal children from their parents and placing them in orphanages and foster care to assimilate into white society; supposedly to give them a better life? (See movie "Rabbit Proof Fence" by Phillip Noyes)
"Yellow cake" is the common name given to uranium ore.
"capital of heart attacks" = Canberra.
Ned Kelly was a bushranger who's family was unfairly victimised by the constabulary during colonial days because they were Irish. Though he was an outlaw he became an icon for freedom fighting after being hung for murder.
Matilda's waltz- reference to Banjo Patterson an Aust. poet.
Blood stains on the wattle- ref. to Henry Lawson an Aust poet.

Cheers, Witty.

Thank you, Witty, for the additional references.

May I add - for those not fully acquainted with The Life And Works Of Some Rolling Stones - that Mick Jagger played "Ned Kelly" in the 1970 movie?

And that for some non-Aussies, like me, "Waltzing Matilda" appears to be the real National Anthem down under where you live? (As I'm talking about it, Tom Waits made an interesting use of the song in "Tom Traubert's Blues"...)

Cheers
Tom

I think I may bring this along...

Freedom on the Wallaby


by Henry Lawson (1891)


Australia's a big country
An' Freedom's humping bluey,
An' Freedom's on the wallaby
Oh! don't you hear 'er cooey?
She's just begun to boomerang,
She'll knock the tyrants silly,
She's goin' to light another fire
And boil another billy.

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread
While loafers thrived beside 'em,
But food to eat and clothes to wear,
Their native land denied 'em.
An' so they left their native land
In spite of their devotion,
An' so they came, or if they stole,
Were sent across the ocean.

Then Freedom couldn't stand the glare
O' Royalty's regalia,
She left the loafers where they were,
An' came out to Australia.
But now across the mighty main
The chains have come ter bind her –
She little thought to see again
The wrongs she left behind her.

Our parents toil'd to make a home –
Hard grubbin 'twas an' clearin' –
They wasn't crowded much with lords
When they was pioneering.
But now that we have made the land
A garden full of promise,
Old Greed must crook 'is dirty hand
And come ter take it from us.

So we must fly a rebel flag,
As others did before us,
And we must sing a rebel song
And join in rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting
O' those that they would throttle;
They needn't say the fault is ours
If blood should stain the wattle!

here is a link to a nice picture of a wattle (in case you thought that the blood on the wattle was from shaving)


http://www.anbg.gov.au/acacia/species/A-pycnantha.html

Yes indeed Tom, you may bring this along. Nice to see someone from outside of Australia that is familiar with Henry Lawson. (I am presuming you are not an Aussie, Tom) "Freedom On The Wallaby" reveals something about the nature of the Aussie character I think. This poem was set to music by an Australian folk/rock band- name escapes me at the moment. The album (on vinyl) was titled :'Faces In The Street'.
And yes Tom Waits used Waltzing Matilda in a very interesting and appropriate way I thought, in Tom Traubert's Blues. Did you know that until recently an American company held the copyright on Waltzing Matilda???- our unofficial national anthem!! mmmmmmmmmm.
A bit like Michael Jackson owning the copyright to the Beatle's songs. Just does not seem right somehow.

Nice touch with the 'wattle' link Insanitor.

Cheers, Witty.

Hi Witty

Lawsons poem is timeless in many ways, still it rings true today. Also I didn't realise that Waltzing Matilda was no longer owned by an American company. So many other "Australian" icons are...like SAOs and Vegemite. Oh well, as long as they are still part of the collective heart I guess it's okay

So are you going to record your song - here or otherwise?

Cheers

PS was it the Bushwhackers?

Insanitor, YES, it was the Bushwhackers, thankyou.
And yes, I do intend to find time to record this song and also "The Poet of Rock 'n Roll". But once that is done how to I post the music here?
I think Waltzing Matilda reached an age when it could no longer be under copyright by anybody.
Cheers, Witty.

Re: Waltzing Matilda I liked Tom Wait's version a lot. But then I like Tom Waits a lot. As far as Waltzing Matilda being in the Public Domain...not necessarily. If anyone is seriously considering recording it, I'd definitely check to see if it is still protected by Copyright.

witty_owl wrote:Insanitor, YES, it was the Bushwhackers, thankyou.
And yes, I do intend to find time to record this song and also "The Poet of Rock 'n Roll". But once that is done how to I post the music here?
I think Waltzing Matilda reached an age when it could no longer be under copyright by anybody.
Cheers, Witty.

Where there's a will, there's a bush (whacker)

I believe "Waltzing Matilda" is free now. Finally.

btw Irving Berlin was the first to live on the day his copyright (on "Alexander's Ragtime Band") ended. I believe he really celebrated that...

Tom

I was pretty sure that copyright subsists in a work for 50 years after the death of the composer. That may just be Canada. In the U.S., I know that they could re-new the copyright for an additional 25 years. Hopefully, there have been some big changes in that intiquated Copyright Act. I'd like to add that if there indeed have been changes in the Copyright Act, I don't want to know about it!.

I'm interested in the Irving Berlin thing, though. I'll look it up on the 'net.