Cover of Old Bush Songs (1905), Banjo Paterson's seminal collection of bush ballads
The bush ballad, bush song, or bush poem is a style of poetry and folk music that depicts the life, character and scenery of the Australian bush. The typical bush ballad employs a straightforward rhyme structure to narrate a story, often one of action and adventure, and uses language that is colourful, colloquial, and idiomatically Australian. Bush ballads range in tone from humorous to melancholic, and many explore themes of Australian folklore, including bushranging, droving, droughts, floods, life on the frontier, and relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
The tradition dates back to the beginnings of European settlement when colonists, mostly British and Irish, brought with them the folk music of their homelands. Many early bush poems originated in Australia's convict system, and were transmitted orally rather than in print. It evolved into a unique style over the ensuing decades, attaining widespread popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when it was thought by many Australians to convey "an authentic expression of the national spirit".[1] Through bush poetry, publications like The Bulletin sought to define and promote mateship, egalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism and a concern for the "battler" as quintessential Australian values.
Though the style has since declined in popularity, works from the period leading up to Federation remain among the best-known and loved poems in Australia, and "bush bards" such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson are regarded as giants of Australian literature. Clubs and festivals devoted to bush poetry can be found throughout the country, and the tradition lives on in Australian country music.
Characteristics
The songs tell personal stories of life in the wide open country of Australia. Typical subjects include mining, raising and droving cattle, sheep shearing, wanderings, war stories, the 1891 Australian shearers' strike, class conflicts between the landless working class and the squatters (landowners), and bushrangers such as Ned Kelly, as well as love interests and more modern fare such as trucking.
Although not technically bush ballads, there are also numerous sea shanties formerly sung by whalers and other sailors, as well as songs about the voyage made by convicts and other immigrants from England to Australia, which are sung in a similar style.
While subject matter may be constant, musical styles differ between traditional and contemporary bush ballads. Exemplars of the traditional bush ballad style include Slim Dusty's When the Rain Tumbles Down in July or Leave Him in the Long yard which have strong narrative in verses plus choruses set to a Pick n' Strum beat. Contemporary bush ballads may employ finger picking and strumming rock styles.[2]
First page of "The Dying Stockman," a bush ballad published in Banjo Paterson's 1905 collection The Old Bush Songs
Australia's musical traditions include the English, Scottish, and Irish folk songs of the convicts, as well as the work of pastoral poets of the 1880s.[3][4] There was also a hymn singing tradition brought by missionaries in the 19th century.[5] and the convict songs of those incarcerated on the island. They represent attempts to European cultural forms to the Australian environment.[4]
The distinctive themes and origins of Australia's bush music can be traced to the songs sung by the convicts who were sent to Australia during the early period of the British colonisation, beginning in 1788. Early Australian ballads sing of the harsh ways of life of the epoch and of such people and events as bushrangers, swagmen, drovers, stockmen and shearers. Convict and bushranger verses often railed against government tyranny. Classic bush songs on such themes include: The Wild Colonial Boy, Click Go The Shears, The Eumeralla Shore, The Drover's Dream, The Queensland Drover, The Dying Stockman and Moreton Bay.[6]
Later themes which endure to the present include the experiences of war, of droughts and flooding rains, of Aboriginality and of the railways and trucking routes which link Australia's vast distances. Isolation and loneliness of life in the Australian bush has been another theme. For much of its history, Australia's bush music belonged to an oral and folkloric tradition, and was only later published in print in volumes such as Banjo Paterson's Old Bush Songs, in the 1890s.
The songs often discuss the hardscrabble life and struggles of the Aussie battler. The songs are often ironic and humorous as with Paterson's Beautiful Land of Australia chorus: "Illawarra, Mittagong, Parramatta, Wollongong. If you wish to become an ourang-outang, Then go to the bush of Australia."
The lyrics for "Waltzing Matilda", often regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem, were also composed by Paterson in 1895. This strain of Australian country music, with lyrics focusing on strictly Australian subjects, is generally known as "bush music" or "bush band music".[6]
The ballad genre continued in Australia after popular music took hold in Great Britain. "The oral ballad tradition centered on rural areas had been dying out in England for a generation as a consequence of the land clearances, industrialisation and urbanisation, found a new lease of life in the Australian bush, and one suspects that these traditional and reworked ballads were also sung in the early "free and easys." While popular music in England had begun to develop in the working-class music halls during the 1830s and 1840s, the spread of popular music in Australia was still in its infancy."[7]
The diversity in Australia has increased, but even in the 1920s Poncie Cubillo introduced the rondalla with their Filipinostring band in Darwin.[5][8] The ballad tradition has grown to include some of these influences including Chinese and Filipino.[5] There were also the de Bortoli family, in Texas, Queensland, Italians who grew tobacco, adding to the amalgam of folk tunes and Tex Mortonhillbilly tunes.[5] Morton, a country music singer originally from New Zealand, released a number of Australian-themed 78s between 1936 and 1943 (including "Dying Duffer's Prayer," "Murrumbridgee Jack," "Billy Brink The Shearer," "Stockman's Last Bed," "Wrap Me Up in My Stockwhip and Blanket," "Rocky Ned (The Outlaw)," and "Ned Kelly Song"), which can be considered to have been inspired by the bush ballad tradition. However, Morton sang without an Australian accent and his yodeling style was closer to that of the American singer Jimmie Rodgers than earlier Australian folk singers.
Later influences from American cowboy and country songs and 1950s rock 'n' roll led to the performance of bush ballads being influenced by and combined with these forms.[3] With the advance of technology and mass communications, the bush ballads were joined on the modern Australian music scene by rockabilly, country music, blues, Texas swing, bluegrass, trail songs, and country pop.[3]
Ashley Cook, a contemporary balladeer, sings about topics relevant to life in agriculture and mining work in Australia's outback: Cattle, Dust and Leather and Blue Queensland Dogs. His song "Road to Kakadu" laments the slaughter of water buffalo in Northern Territory in the 1990s to control the Brucellosis disease.[9]Beneath the Queensland Moon covers the life and death as a drover.
Public perceptions
The genre is sometimes represented[vague] as unsophisticated, partially due to clichéd images and stereotypes.[10]
The genre has been influential and inspirational in theater and movies.[11][12] Since the mid-20th century, bush songs have often been performed by bush bands, such as The Bandicoots or Franklyn B Paverty.[13] Female bush balladeers have also been studied.[14]
A number of awards have been set up to recognize bush balladeers.[15] Jeff Brown was nominated for a Golden Guitar Award in the Bush Ballad of the Year category for a song he recorded In the wings of the yard in 2008.[16] Past winners of the Country Music Awards Australia Bush Ballad of the Year include Anne Kirkpatrick and Joy McKean. The Stan Coster Memorial Bush Ballad Award is presented in several categories. 2007 winners included Reg Poole for male vocalist of the year for 'A Tribute To Slim', Graham Rodger for Songwriter of the Year 'The Battle of Long Tan', and Dean Perrett[17] for Album of the Year 'New Tradition'[18] The publishers of the Balladeers Bulletin magazine also hold a "Bush Balladeer Starquest" competition.[19] At the 2008 36th Country Music Awards of Australia held in Tamworth, Amos Morris became the youngest artist ever to win the Golden Guitar trophy for the Bush Ballad of the Year category with Sign of the Times. [20]
Examples
Some examples of popular bush ballad poems and songs include:[21]
"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 music of Australia has an extensive history made of music societies. Indigenous Australian music forms a significant part of the unique heritage of a 40,000- to 60,000-year history which produced the iconic didgeridoo. Contemporary fusions of indigenous and Western styles are exemplified in the works of Yothu Yindi, No Fixed Address, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and Christine Anu, and mark distinctly Australian contributions to world music.
Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author, widely considered one of the greatest writers of Australia's colonial period.
Slim Dusty, AO MBE was an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. He was an Australian cultural icon, referred to universally as Australia's King of Country Music and one of the country's most awarded stars, with a career spanning nearly seven decades and producing numerous recordings. He was known to record songs in the legacy of Australia, particularly of bush life and renowned Australian bush poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson that represented the lifestyle. The music genre was coined the "bush ballad", a style first made popular by Buddy Williams, the first artist to perform the genre in Australia, and also for his many trucking songs.
"Clancy of the Overflow" is a poem by Banjo Paterson, first published in The Bulletin, an Australian news magazine, on 21 December 1889. The poem is typical of Paterson, offering a romantic view of rural life, and is one of his best-known works.
William Henry Ogilvie was a Scottish-Australian narrative poet and horseman, jackaroo, and drover, and described as a quiet-spoken handsome Scot of medium height, with a fair moustache and red complexion. He was also known as Will Ogilvie, by the pen names including 'Glenrowan' and the lesser 'Swingle-Bar', and by his initials, WHO.
Australian country music is a part of the music of Australia. There is a broad range of styles, from bluegrass, to yodeling to folk to the more popular. The genre has been influenced by Celtic and English folk music, the Australian bush ballad tradition, as well as by popular American country music. Themes include: outback life, the lives of stockmen, truckers and outlaws, songs of romance and of political protest; and songs about the "beauty and the terror" of the Australian bush.
A bush band is a group of musicians that play Australian bush ballads. A similar bush band tradition is also found in New Zealand.
Australian folklore refers to the folklore and urban legends that have evolved in Australia from Aboriginal Australian myths to colonial and contemporary folklore including people, places and events, that have played part in shaping the culture, image and traditions that are seen in contemporary Old Australia.
William Neville Scott OAM was an Australian author, folklorist, songwriter, poet, and collector of bush ballads and Australian folk history. He has published anthologies of Australian bush songs, including the best selling book The Complete Book of Australian Folklore published in 1976. He was awarded the Order of Australia in 1992 for his contributions to folklore, folk music, and Australian literature. He was considered a living treasure, and his anthologies of songs and his donated collections continue his legacy.
The History of Australia (1851–1900) refers to the history of the indigenous and colonial peoples of the Australian continent during the 50-year period which preceded the foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901.
The Arts in Australia refers to the visual arts, literature, performing arts and music in the area of, on the subject of, or by the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding Indigenous and colonial societies. Indigenous Australian art, music and story telling attaches to a 40–60,000-year heritage and continues to affect the broader arts and culture of Australia. During its early western history, Australia was a collection of British colonies, therefore, its literary, visual and theatrical traditions began with strong links to the broader traditions of English and Irish literature, British art and English and Celtic music. However, the works of Australian artists – including Indigenous as well as Anglo-Celtic and multicultural migrant Australians – has, since 1788, introduced the character of a new continent to the global arts scene – exploring such themes as Aboriginality, Australian landscape, migrant and national identity, distance from other Western nations and proximity to Asia, the complexities of urban living and the "beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian bush.
"Brisbane Ladies" is an Australian folksong and is one of many adaptations of the traditional British naval song "Spanish Ladies". The version given below is the most commonly sung, but the original mentions Nanango favorably as "that jolly old township". The song is also known as "Augathella Station".
"Jim Jones at Botany Bay" is a traditional Australian folk ballad dating from the early 19th-century. The narrator, Jim Jones, is found guilty of poaching and sentenced to transportation to the penal colony of New South Wales. En route, his ship is attacked by pirates, but the crew holds them off. When the narrator remarks that he would rather have joined the pirates or indeed drowned at sea than gone to Botany Bay, Jones is reminded by his captors that any mischief will be met with the whip. In the final verse, Jones describes the daily drudgery and degradation of life as a convict in Australia, and dreams of joining the bushrangers and taking revenge on his floggers.
John Stanley Raymond Meredith OAM was an Australian pioneer folklorist from Holbrook, New South Wales whose work influenced the Australian folk music revival of the 1950s, in particular as a founding member of the Australia's first revivalist bush band The Bushwhackers. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1986 for service to Australian folklore and music, and became a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992 for service to the Arts, particularly in the collection and preservation of Australian folklore.
Australian folk music is the traditional music from the large variety of immigrant cultures and those of the original Australian inhabitants.
Stan Coster OAM was an Australian country music singer-songwriter. His songs were regularly performed by Slim Dusty and other singers. He is the father of country music singer Tracy Coster.
This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature in 1892.
The Australian music industry refers to the collection of individuals, organisations, businesses and activities that are involved in the creation, production, distribution and promotion of music in Australia. The music industry encompasses a wide range of genres and styles of music including pop, rock, EDM, hip-hop, classical as well as featuring music from Indigenous artists.
"A Bushman's Song" (1892) is a poem by Australian poet A. B. Paterson.
↑ The 'country' in contemporary Australian women's country music: gender, history, narrative.(Cultural narratives) 01-JAN-06 Journal of Australian Studies
↑ "The focus is on ballads, a poetic form which has had a distinctive and enduring relationship with country music in Australia." Manifold: Brisbane and the 'myth' of John Manifold Australian Literary Studies 01-OCT-03 http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-19874044_ITM
↑ "Manifold's papers in the Fryer Library show the extent of his involvement with Brisbane-based political and cultural groups: the Brisbane Realist Writers Group; the Queensland branch of the CPA and its various cultural sub-groups (particularly the Communist Arts Group); his bush band, 'The Bandicoots'; the Federation of Bush-Music Groups; the indigenous support group ABSCHOL; 'fellow-traveller' organisations such as the Queensland division of the Australia-China Society; and various mainstream literary groups such as the Fellowship of Australian Writers (Queensland), of which he was president in 1964. " Some versions of Manifold: Brisbane and the 'myth' of John Manifold 01-OCT-03 Australian Literary Studies
↑ "The discussion of Australian women performers will begin by noting the career of Shirley Thoms, who began her career in the mid-nineteen-thirties, will consider the work of a range of contemporary performers, and will conclude with a brief consideration of the work of Indigenous singer-songwriter Yvonne Bradley." The 'country' in contemporary Australian women's country music: gender, history, narrative.(Cultural narratives) 01-JAN-06 Journal of Australian Studies
↑ " Jeff says it's important to keep the old yarns alive through country music ballads. 'It's our heritage really and it needs to be kept alive somehow and the old bush ballads are the way to do it.'" Balladeer ready for a golden time at Tamworth By Scott Lamond 9 January 2008 Bundaberg Wide Bay Rural Report, ABC Rural Report
↑ "Bio". Deanperrett.com. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
↑ "His interest in collecting Australian bush ballads and songs resulted in several anthologies and essays, most notably The Penguin Australian Song Book (1964)" Some versions of Manifold: Brisbane and the 'myth' of John Manifold 01-OCT-03 Australian Literary Studies
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