Waltzing Matilda

At primary school — Nelson Street Boys’ RC School, the principal Mr Prince Ferdinand explained the words of the song. He said “a swagman” was “a tramp” or “a homeless person”, “billabong” means a “water-hole” and the most important of all “Waltzing Matilda” means “to tramp from place to place carrying a swag ie a bundle containing what could be stolen or begged.” There was I, among two hundred plus, singing or rather shouting the chorus. The good singers were given solo parts. “Ferdie” explained that although it was written by Andrew Barton Paterson, it could be classified as a folk song because the writer took most of the words and music from unknown traditional sources.

He emphasised that the mood and tempo of the song, change with each stanza and we must capture the feelings with our voices.

Years later, in my class of 18 teachers at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, there was an Australian lady, Mrs Betty Tighe, who told me she learnt ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in school just as most Aussie kids.

The only other Australian I ever had a conversation with, was at the Empire State Building, New York in 2004. While we were waiting to move from one level to the other, somehow this lady and I started to talk. We covered a number of topics.

She too loved the folk song but loved cricket even more.

She told me that an all-rounder from Trinidad touring with the West Indies in Sydney, had invited her to dinner one night. She could not remember his name but said, “He was a very handsome black man but something happened and we did not go out together.” When I mentioned Bernard Julien, she immediately replied, “That’s the guy. Whenever you meet him back in Trinidad, please tell him ‘Hello’ for me.” How well I remember “Waltzing Matilda” as the timeless theme song sounding sometimes like a rousing national anthem and sometimes like a haunting funeral dirge in the movie — On the Beach — made in 1959 with Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins dealing with a nuclear holocaust that exterminated every human being with the exception of those living on the continent down under — Australia.

The second stanza goes — “Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong, / Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee, / And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag, / ; ‘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 stowed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag, / ‘You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!’ ” By the way, “a jumbuck” is a sheep. The third stanza tells of the squatter or large scale sheep farmer who rode up on his thoroughbred with three troopers and questioned the swagman about the jumbuck in his tucker-bag.

The fourth and last stanza reads — “Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong / ‘You’ll never take me alive!’ said he, / And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong, / ‘You’ll never take me alive!’ said he, / Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda / You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me, / And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong, / ‘You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!’ There is the chorus of a calypso with “Matilda” — not an expression that time but a woman, which goes like this ‘Mathilda! Mathilda,! Mathilda she tief me money and gorn Venezuela.”