"Waltzing Matilda" is a song developed in the Australian style of poetry and folk music called a bush ballad. It has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem".
The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot (waltzing) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back, a slang expression that may have originally been repurposed from a work of light verse by Charles Godfrey Leland. The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or "swagman", boiling a billy at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. When the jumbuck's owner, a squatter (grazier), and three troopers (mounted policemen) pursue the swagman for theft, he declares "You'll never catch me alive!" and commits suicide by drowning himself in a nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site.
The original lyrics were composed in 1895 by Australian poet Banjo Paterson, to a tune played by Christina MacPherson based on her memory of Thomas Bulch's march Craigielee, which was in turn based on James Barr's setting for Robert Tannahill's poem "Thou Bonnie Wood o Craigielee".
The first published setting of "Waltzing Matilda" was Harry Nathan's on 20 December 1902. Nathan wrote a new variation of Christina MacPherson's melody and changed some of the words. Sydney tea merchant, James Inglis, wanted to use "Waltzing Matilda" as an advertising jingle for Billy Tea. In early 1903, Inglis purchased the rights to 'Waltzing Matilda' and asked Marie Cowan, the wife of one of his managers, to try her hand at turning it into an advertising jingle. Cowan made some more changes to the words and some very minor changes to Nathan's melody and gave the song a simple, brisk, harmonious accompaniment which made it very catchy. Her song, published in 1903, grew in popularity, and Cowan's arrangement remains the best-known version of "Waltzing Matilda".
Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that it has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, in the Queensland outback, where Paterson wrote the lyrics. In 2012, to remind Australians of the song's significance, Winton organised the inaugural Waltzing Matilda Day to be held on 6 April, wrongly thought at the time to be the anniversary of its first performance.
The song was first recorded in 1926 as performed by John Collinson and Russell Callow. In 2008, this recording of "Waltzing Matilda" was added to the Sounds of Australia registry in the National Film and Sound Archive, which says that there are more recordings of "Waltzing Matilda" than any other Australian song.
In 1895, Andrew Barton Paterson was living in Sydney, New South Wales. By day, he was a solicitor. By night he wrote his much-loved poetry and moonlighted as a freelance journalist under the pen name of "The Banjo". Banjo was the name of his favourite horse on his father's farm. Paterson took a holiday from his day job, probably in early August. He made a journey of at least 5 days to visit Sarah Riley, his fiancée of 7 years, in Winton, central-western Queensland and to see how people lived on the enormous, remote sheep stations in the district.
On arriving in Winton, Banjo attended a gathering where Christina Macpherson, Sarah's friend from school days in St Kilda, Melbourne, played some music to entertain those present. One tune caught Banjo's attention. In Christina's own words, "Mr Paterson asked me what it was – I could not tell him & he then said that that he thought that he could write some lines to it. He then and there wrote the first verse." The rest of the song was written and rehearsed over a period of some three or four weeks in August and early September at a number of locations. Credible accounts exist of the later verses being written at Dagworth Station, a sheep station 130 km north-west of Winton in Central West Queensland, owned by the Macpherson family. Paterson and others have left accounts of the song being written at Dick's Creek, en route to Winton from Dagworth Station. The song was then sung, with piano accompaniment, in a house in Winton (owned by members of the Riley family). There is photographic evidence of the song, at an advanced stage, being sung at Oondooroo Station, again with piano accompaniment. When no piano was available, the instrument that Christina played was a small, very early model of an instrument called a volkszither or akkordzither in Germany. In America, where it became very popular, it was called an autoharp.
On 24 April 1894, Christina had attended the annual Warrnambool steeplechase meeting in south western Victoria. The music at the meeting was provided by the Warrnambool Garrison Artillery Band. The first item played by the band was the quick march "Craigielee", composed by English-born Australian Thomas Bulch, in or before 1891, using the pseudonym Godfrey Parker. "Craigielee" was a typical march with three strains. The first strain in the main section was based on "Thou Bonny Wood of Craigie Lee", composed by Glasgow musician James Barr, published in 1818 for Robert Tannahill's poem "Thou Bonnie Wood o Craigielee" which was written prior to 1806. Christina had a good memory for songs and, when she had the opportunity, tried to play the first strain by ear on piano. Christina's memory was not perfect. The first strain of "Craigielee" had the musical form AABC. Christina remembered the AAB section and put it into her tune as bars 1–12. For some reason she did not add the C section to her song as bars 13–16. To complete her tune, Christina repeated the second A section. Christina's tune had the musical form AABA. This is the musical form of "Waltzing Matilda" sung today.
When Christina arrived at Dagworth in June 1895 she found an autoharp with three or four chord bars, which belonged to the bookkeeper, John Tait Wilson. As there was no piano at Dagworth, Christina learned to play this autoharp. Within seven weeks she was able to play the tune that she heard at Warrnambool, well enough to catch the attention of Banjo Paterson. During the rest of her stay at Dagworth she mastered it.
About seven weeks after she arrived at Dagworth, Christina and her brothers went into Winton for a week or so. This coincided with the time that Banjo Paterson arrived to meet Sarah Riley. Banjo and Sarah were immediately invited to join the group returning to Dagworth Station. This was an irresistible temptation for a man venturing into the outback, the 'never-never' for the first time. During his stay, Paterson would have seen the places, heard the stories and encountered the people who inspired the lyrics of the original "Waltzing Matilda".
In Queensland, in 1891, the Great Shearers' Strike brought the colony close to civil war and was broken only after the Premier of Queensland, Samuel Griffith, called in the military. In July and August 1894, as the shearing season approached, the strike broke out again in protest at a wage and contract agreement proposed by the squatters. During July and August, seven shearing sheds in central Queensland were burned by striking union shearers before shearing could begin with non-union labour. Early on the morning of 2 September, a group of striking union shearers, firing rifles and pistols, set fire to the shearing shed at Dagworth. The fire killed over a hundred sheep. The shed was defended by Constable Michael Daly, Bob Macpherson and his brothers and employees. In the early afternoon of the same day, Senior Constable Austin Cafferty, in Kynuna, was informed that a man had shot himself at a striking shearers' camp in a billabong 4 miles from Kynuna and about 15 miles from Dagworth. When he arrived at the camp, S/C Cafferty found the body of Samuel Hoffmeister, also known as "Frenchy", with a bullet wound through the mouth, in an apparent suicide. Hoffmeister was a known leader of the striking unionists and suspected of being involved in the arson attack at Dagworth on the night before. Later S/C Cafferty was joined by Constable Michael Daly, who had travelled from Dagworth.Three days later, a Coronial inquest into Hoffmeister's death was held at Kynuna Station. Police Magistrate, Ernest Eglington, travelled from Winton to conduct it. Dr Welford accompanied him to carry out a post mortem. Evidence was given by shearers who were in the camp when Hoffmeister died. The coroner found that the cause of Hoffmeister's death was "suicide" – a single gunshot to the mouth. That finding has, in 2010, been questioned.
Banjo Paterson was a first-class horseman and loved riding. It is likely that he would have seized any opportunity to go riding at Dagworth. Bob Macpherson (the brother of Christina) and Paterson went riding together and, in Christina's words, "they came to a waterhole (or billabong) & found the skin of a sheep which had been recently killed—all that had been left by a swagman". This incident may have inspired the second verse. Tom Ryan worked at Dagworth in 1895 and recorded an incident in which Paterson accompanied Dagworth horse breaker, Jack Lawton, when he went to the Combo to bring in a mob of horses. They brought them part of the way in and then put them against a fence running into a waterhole. Lawton then took the saddle from his horse and gave it a swim. He then stripped off and dived from a gum tree into the waterhole. Paterson followed suit. Jack then noticed that the mob of horses were walking away and would probably go back to their starting point. He jumped on his own horse without waiting to don any clothes and galloped after the mob. He was surprised, on looking around, to find his companion had again followed his example. On reaching the station that night, Paterson told him it was the best day's outing he had ever had.
Banjo's stay at Dagworth Station was short. He would have spent at least 16 days travelling during his absence from Sydney. While claims are made that he attended Combo Waterhole, they are not confirmed by Banjo or others who were present at the time of any visit there. There is no evidence that Banjo made the 52 km round trip to the Four Mile Billabong where Hoffmeister's body was found. It is highly unlikely that he would have had time to do so during his short stay at Dagworth Station.
Paterson returned to Sydney in early September. Sometime later, Banjo wrote to Christina and asked her to send him a copy of the music of their song. This presented Christina with a serious problem: Christina played music by ear: she did not use sheet music. Writing down music from memory is quite challenging, even for musicians who read music well. It is extremely challenging for one who does not. In Christina's own words, "I am no musician but did my best." Christina managed to get hold of some 12-stave manuscript paper and wrote a first draft, writing down the notes of her song on the stave, as little open circles, at the pitch, and in the order that she remembered them. Christina would have used a piano to help her do this. She made no effort to indicate the lengths of the notes. In bar 9, Christina wrote the first 2 notes as a C. This was a mistake: they should have been B flat. Christina corrected this in a later manuscript. Christina had a very good ear. Unfortunately, Christina had very limited ability to represent the time value of notes. Her full drafts have many mistakes. Some are minor and easily corrected. Some are fundamentally wrong. Christina's final drafts do not accurately represent the melody that she sang, and as written, they are unplayable. Despite this, it is possible to infer, with considerable accuracy, the melody of the tune that Christina recalled when she eventually drafted the manuscript and it established the Scottish origin of the song.
In 2001, Australian folk singer, Dave de Hugard, made a recording of the original "Waltzing Matilda" based on his interpretation of the Macpherson/Paterson manuscript. This can be heard at archived exhibition, "Who'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me?" at the national library of Australia. In 2014, American musician, Robbie Hateley, uploaded his interpretation of Christina's manuscript to YouTube. His upload is based on good quality research mainly from the national library of Australia. While the singers use different styles, the melody adopted by both is very similar. This melody is probably similar to the melody that Christina and others sang in 1895.
It is not known when Banjo wrote to Christina or where Christina was when the manuscripts were written. Christina may have still been in Queensland or she may have returned to Melbourne. Christina wrote at least 3 full drafts of the song. She kept one, now known as the Macpherson manuscript. She sent one to Banjo and gave another to W. B. Bartlam, the manager of a station adjoining Dagworth at the time. This one is now known as the Bartlam-Roulston manuscript. The Bartlam-Roulston manuscript has the correct notes at the beginning of bar 9, indicating that it was written after the Macpherson manuscript. The manuscript that she kept was passed down to her sister, Margaret (McArthur) who in turn passed it down to her daughter, Diana (Baillieu). It was made public in 1992 and was later donated it to the National Library of Australia. The Bartlams knew what their manuscript was, but no one believed them until 1971. This allowed some myths about the song to grow. Both full drafts and the first draft are held at the National Library of Australia. The manuscript sent to Paterson was lost.
Some 40 years later, and not long before Christina died, Christina and Banjo each left different accounts of their recollection of the events surrounding the writing of "Waltzing Matilda". In the early 1930s, English musician Dr Thomas Wood worked his way around Australia as a music examiner and searched for Australian folk songs. He was captivated by "Waltzing Matilda". In 1931, the Argus newspaper reported him saying that 'Waltzing Matilda' was written on a moment's inspiration by Banjo Paterson, his sister composing the music equally spontaneously. In 1934, in his book "Cobbers", Wood wrote a brief, colourful, but very incomplete account of the composition of "Waltzing Matilda". Christina carefully drafted a letter to him to set the record straight but did not date or send it. In it, Christina stated that when the first verse was written, she had travelled to Winton with her brothers and that she had heard the music played by a band at Warrnambool. Christina then added more information from 1895 through to the song's inclusion in the "Australasian Students Song Book", which was published in 1911. Christina had a comprehensive memory and was proud of her role in producing the song. About the same time, for a talk on ABC radio, Paterson wrote that in 1894 the shearers staged a strike by way of expressing themselves, and Macpherson's shearing shed was burnt down, and a man was picked up dead. .... while resting for lunch or changing horses on our four-in-hand-journeys, Miss Macpherson, afterwards the wife of financial magnate, J McCall McCowan, used to play a little Scottish tune on a zither, and I put words to the tune and called it "Waltzing Matilda". These scanty details complement Christina's account but do not suggest that the song meant a lot to him. Paterson also attributed the playing of the music to the wrong Macpherson sister. Christina's sister Jean married McCall McCowan. Christina never married. As time passed, Banjo's memories of his trip to Dagworth faded.
Some 30 years later again and also for a talk on ABC radio, Hugh Paterson, Banjo's son, wrote his recollection of what Banjo had told him about the role that the autoharp played in the composition of "Waltzing Matilda". When Christina played her tune derived from "Bonnie Wood of Craigielea", Banjo said, "I told her that I thought I could write some whimsical words to match the tune's appeal to me...... We were too far out in the 'never-never' for pianos. But Miss Macpherson played it for me on an autoharp while I wrote the words that seemed to me to express its whimsicality and dreaminess."
For many years, it was believed that the song was first performed on 6 April 1895 by Sir Herbert Ramsay, 5th Bart., at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton, Queensland. The occasion was a banquet for the Premier of Queensland. This day is still celebrated as 'Waltzing Matilda Day'. In fact, Christina, Jean and Ewen Macpherson left Melbourne on the SS Wodonga on 1 June 1895 and the song was not written until probably late August. "Waltzing Matilda" was certainly not sung on 6 April 1895. Sir Herbert Ramsay did sing "Waltzing Matilda" when Bob Macpherson, Christina and Banjo visited Oondooroo Station, owned by the Ramsay family probably in the first week of September 1895. Herbert was dressed up as a swagman and his photo was taken.
Barrister, Trevor Monti, made a study of the transcript of the Coronial inquest into the death of Samuel Hoffmeister. In February 2010, ABC News reported his opinion that the death of Hoffmeister was more akin to a gangland assassination than to suicide.
Given the tumultuous events of the shearers' strike and the burning down of 8 shearing sheds in the Winton & Kynuna districts in 1894, and given Paterson's socialist views, it is not difficult to see why historians look for a political allegory in the words of "Waltzing Matilda", penned in the districts in 1895. Ross Fitzgerald, emeritus professor in history and politics at Griffith University, argued that the defeat of the strike only a year or so before the song's creation, would have been in Paterson's mind, most likely consciously but at least "unconsciously", and thus was likely to have been an inspiration for the song. Fitzgerald stated, "the two things aren't mutually exclusive"—a view shared by others, who, while not denying the significance of Paterson's relationship with Macpherson, nonetheless recognise the underlying story of the shearers' strike and Hoffmeister's death in the lyrics of the song.
According to writer, Mathew Richardson, the 'swagman', at his most corporeal, is Frenchy Hoffmeister, who actually committed suicide by a billabong......In a more general way, the swagman represents the 'free citizen, the itinerant with no vote, no award, no arbitration, standing for the union'.
These theories were not shared by other historians. In 2008, Australian writers and historians Peter and Sheila Forrest claimed that the widespread belief that Paterson had penned the ballad as a socialist anthem, inspired by the Great Shearers' Strike, was false and a "misappropriation" by political groups. The Forrests asserted that Paterson had in fact written the self-described "ditty" as part of his flirtation with Christina Macpherson, despite his engagement to Sarah Riley.
The original words of the first two lines of the first chorus of 'Waltzing Matilda' are, 'Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda my darling? Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me?' In 2019, in Waltzing Matilda- Australia's Accidental Anthem, W Benjamin Lindner asks two questions. "Is 'Waltzing Matilda' a serenade and who was the 'darling' to whom Paterson posed the question, 'Who'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me?'" Lindner gives the unequivocal answer, "'Waltzing Matilda' is a serenade to Paterson's musical muse, Christina."
Graham Seal, Professor of Folklore at Curtain University, WA, wrote that "Waltzing Matilda" is – "let's be honest – a pretty silly ditty about a swaggie knocking off a sheep and throwing himself in the billabong when the squatter and the cops turn up."
Several alternative theories for the origins of the words of "Waltzing Matilda" have been proposed since the time it was written. Some oral stories collected during the twentieth century claimed that Paterson had merely modified an existing bush song, but there is no evidence for this. In 1905, Paterson himself published a book of bush ballads he had collected from around Australia entitled Old Bush Songs, with nothing resembling "Waltzing Matilda" in it. Nor do any other publications or recordings of bush ballads include anything to suggest it preceded Paterson. Meanwhile, manuscripts from the time the song originated indicate the song's origins with Paterson and Christina Macpherson, as do their own recollections and other pieces of evidence.
The story of "Waltzing Matilda" began in West Paisley, Scotland, about 2 km south of where Glasgow airport is today. Robert Tannahill, the weaver poet, wrote a poem, "Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea", prior to 1806. It was written in the pattern chorus, verse, chorus, verse, ready to be set to music.Tannahill's friend James Barr set it to music, and it was published in 1818. Barr's song was unusually melodious: it used four 4-bar phrases in a 16-bar song. It had the musical form ABCD. In 1850, an arrangement was published in 'The Lyric Gems of Scotland', page 65, which was written in the pattern verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and it dropped the second phrase of the verse and repeated the first. It had the musical form AABC. In 1880, an arrangement by T S Gleadhill, published in 'Kyles Scottish Lyric Gems', pages 244, 245, also dropped the second phrase of the verse and repeated the first. Thomas Bulch, an English expat living in Australia, wrote a quick march arrangement for brass band, called 'Craigielee' most likely in 1891. The opening strain of 'Craigielee' was 'Bonnie Wood of Craigielea' with the musical form AABC. It is very close to the melody in the "Lyric Gems" and perhaps even closer to the melody in Gleadhill's "Kyles Scottish Lyric Gems". This was the tune that caught Christina Macpherson's attention at the races at Warrnambool, Victoria, in 1894. Christina had a good ear and, when she next sat at a piano, she tried to play the opening strain. Christina remembered the AAB phrases and transcribed them into bars 1 to 12 of her tune. For some reason, Christina did not transcribe the C phrase into bars 13 to 16 of her tune. Instead, she repeated bars 5 to 8 in bars 13 to 16. This gave Christina's tune the musical form AABA, popular American style. This is the musical form of "Waltzing Matilda" sung today.
One more change needed to be made. The tune that Christina played for Banjo was written to set the poem "Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea" to music. The words of its chorus are,
The number of syllables in each line is 8, 8, 8, 7. The verses are the same.
The words of the original chorus of Christina's Waltzing Matilda are
The number of syllables in each line is 11, 10, 12, 10. The verses are similar.
As Banjo and Christina collaborated on their song, Christina had to add more notes to her initial tune. She did this by breaking up several notes in each line into shorter ones. While doing this, Christina retained the shape of the melody and the typical 2/4 type rhythm of 'Craigielee'. Typical of songs with multiple verses, the melody had to be changed slightly in some verses to fit the meter of the words. Christina and Banjo would have had some arguments, Christina wanting to preserve the tune and Banjo wanting the strict meter of the lyrics to be preserved. Despite this, the two tunes sound very similar. Many may even say that they are the same.
This tune did not spread very quickly: an electronic search of Australian newspapers between 1895 and 1902, using trove, reveals only two reports of 'Waltzing Matilda' being sung. On 9 October 1900, the governor of Queensland visited Winton and Mr. A. Ramsay sang 'Waltzing Matilda', "one of Banjo Patterson's ditties composed in the Winton district." On 23 November 1901, the Hughenden representative of the N.Q. Herald reported that, "'Waltzing Matilda' is all the rage here now." Three regional newspapers printed the words of the "quaint trifle", but not the tune. Some of the words had been changed and resembled the words later used by Marie Cowan.
To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here.
Enjoy!
