"Click Go The Shears" Songs Of Australia

Details about songs from rear cover: "Click Go The Shears" This song provides the title for this record and for a very good reason. When it was first published and recorded it quickly became one of the most popular songs heard in Australia. It was sung to me by the late Jack Barr to this tune "Ring the Bell Watchman". It is a particularly vivid description of a shearer's life. "Waltzing Matilda" This truly national song needs little introduction. The words are by and the tune is most probably an adaptation of "The Bold Fusilier". The words Waltzing Matilda mean "carrying the swag", a reference to the swagman's custom of carrying his blanket and meagre possessions on a strong stick over his shoulder. A "jumbuck" is a sheep. "The Overlander" Few songs have as many versions as this rollicking ballad depicting the virtues and failings of the cattle drover. The earliest version dates from around the 1840's. "On The Banks Of The Condamine" Judging from the number of people who know snatches of this ballad, it was one of the most popular some generations ago. The tune of the opening verse is the original. Artistically, the song improves by the use of melody in the alternating verses. "The Old Bark Hut" No two printed versions of this song give the same words, nor does this tune resemble any yet published. Once more we have a subject which stimulated the imagination of every singer hence the impossibility of arriving at a definite text. "Bold Jack Donahue" Like many similar narratives, this Bushranger ballad was sung originally to the "Wearing of the Green". The death of a bushranger seems to have been the surest means of arousing the balladist's muse, for each distinguished bushranger is the subject of at least one ballad. This particular ballad was so effective it was officially prohibited. It became an offence punishable by forfeiture of licence for it to be sung on public-house premises. Jack Donahue was shot in 1830. "Botany Bay" No collection of Australian songs would be complete without some reference to the early convict system. This song serves a double purpose in this regard. Not only does it link the "Old Bailey" Court-house of London with Botany Bay, New South Wales, but it gives a picture of the Cockney pickpocket who at this distance in time, appeals to our sense of humour and wins our sympathy rather than our dislike. "The Lime Juice Tub" first heard this song in Brisbane where it was sung to him after a concert. It is an old shearing song and was popular in the 19th century in the shearing sheds along the Lachlan River in New South Wales. The Australian shearers sang the song while they were working and also during their leisure hours; a means of poking fun at the "brand new chums" from the British Isles who were not as adept at shearing sheep as were the more experienced Australians. The British emigrants came out to Australia in slow sailing "tubs" in which they were served Lime Juice to prevent scurvy. "Moreton Bay" or "Convict's Lament On The Death of Captain Logan" In "True Patriots All", G. C. Ingleton notes that this ballad is very old and possibly was contemporary with Logan's death. Captain Logan was in charge of the Moreton Bay penal settlement and was hated for his cruelty to the convicts. He was murdered by a hostile aboriginal tribe in 1930. This ballad provides another picture to "Botany Bay" of the convict system. "The Wild Colonial Boy" This is the most famous of all Australian bush ballads. There are many versions and it was sung to a variety of tunes. More than likely the full story will never be known, but Judge Macaboy was the judge's correct name, and he dispensed justice from the Bendigo Bench. In the early days a chorus "So come along my hearties" followed each verse in this song, as well as in "Bold Jack Donahue". "My Old Black Billy" "Billy" tea is without doubt the open air beverage of every Australian and the smoke-black billy will remain the truest symbol of the bushman and of bush life. The words of this affectionate tribute to that symbolic utensil were written by (b. 1896). "Bold Tommy Payne" This is an example of the living tradition of folk song commenting on current happenings. The tune "Vilikins and his Dinah" has been in constant use to carry a new story. "Wild Rover No More" To me this ballad is a loveable droll picture of the harmless bush-hand, young, old or middle-aged whose incapacity to stay on one job somehow gives him an air of the eternal present; with him there seems to be no past and no future. The tune seems to be original. "The Dying Stockman" This is a parody on "The Tarpaulin Jacket", the words, it has been claimed, were written one night at Galton, Queensland, by two men, Horace Flower and Walton Kent. Certainly it is well over sixty years old. The usual connotation of "parody" is out of place, for the words have a dignity and poignancy which are completely convincing.