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If you don't have RealOne player, you will need to download
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| Advance
Australia Fair |
Proclaimed Australia's National Anthem by the Governor - General on 19th April 1984.
Words & music composed by Peter Dodds McCormick
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Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free,
We've golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history's page, let every stage
Advance Australia fair
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia fair
Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,
We'll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair
In joyful strains then let us sing
Advance Australia Fair.
Click here to hear the
anthem
by Julie Anthony
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| APRA's list of Ten Best Australian
Songs |
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To celebrate the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA)'s 75th
anniversary in May 2001, and to honour the songwriters who have provided the soundtrack for generations of
Australians, the APRA compiled the ten best and most significant Australian songs of the past 75 years.
Voted by 100 distinguished Australian writers, musicians, critics and
broadcasters, "Friday on My Mind" has been on the minds of Australians since 1967, earning itself the number one
position.
APRA'S Ten Best Australian Songs (Song by Performer/s
- Writer/s)
- Friday on My Mind by The Easybeats - Writers: Harry Vanda, George Young
- Eagle Rock by Daddy Cool - Writer: Ross Wilson
- Beds are Burning by
Midnight Oil - Writers: Rob Hirst, James Moginie, Peter Garrett
- Down Under by
Men at Work - Writers: Colin
Hay, Ron Strykert
- Pub With No Beer by
Slim Dusty - Writer: Gordon Parsons
- The Loved One by
The Loved Ones - Writers: Ian Clyne, Gerry Humphreys, Robert Lovett
- Don't Dream It's Over by
Crowded House - Writer: Neil Finn
- Khe Sanh by
Cold Chisel - Writer: Don Walker
- It's A Long Way To The Top by
AC/DC -
Writers: Ronald Scott, Angus Young, Malcolm Young
- Quasimodo's Dream by
The Reels - Writer: Dave Mason
Men at Work
The APRA is an association administering the rights of the world's composers, songwriters and publishers in Australia and New Zealand.
Established in 1926, APRA represents in excess of 37,000 Australasian writers and publishers through direct membership, and nearly 1.66 million writers and publishers throughout the world
The APRA website: www.apra.com.au
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| Waltzing
Matilda |
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by AB 'Banjo' Paterson (1864 - 1941) |
Oh there was once a swagman camped in the billabongs,
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree;
And he sang as he looked at the old billy boiling,
'Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.'
CHORUS:
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, my darling,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.
Waltzing Matilda and leading a water-bag,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.
Up came the jumbuck to drink at the waterhole,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee;
And he sang as he put him away in his tucker-bag,
'You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.'
CHORUS
Up came the squatter a-riding his thoroughbred;
Up came policemen - one, two and three.
'Whose is the jumbuck you've got in the tucker bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with we.'
CHORUS
Up sprang the swagman and jumped in the waterhole,
Drowning himself by the Coolibah tree;
And his voice can be heard as it sings in the billabongs,
'Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?'
CHORUS
Click here to hear
Waltzing Matilda
Visit
the official Matilda website
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Waltzing Matilda was written by Australia's most famous poet Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
in 1895. He heard a tune played by Miss Christina MacPherson of Dagworth Station. He added the words of Waltzing Matilda to the music. The song was later performed in public and is famous throughout the world, It is also known as Australia's second national anthem.
This is one of several versions since the original in 1895.
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Explanation of Australian slang used in this song:
[full dictionary]
Billabong: A waterhole.
Billy: A can or small kettle used to boil water for tea.
Coolabah tree: A type of native tree in Australia
Jumbuck: A sheep. There are 20 times as many sheep as there are people in Australia.
Matilda: Although there are several schools of thought, Matilda as originally used is of Teutonic origins and means
'Mighty Battle Maiden', referring to the women in camps during the Thirty Year
War in Europe. Later this more commonly referred to the great army coats or blankets that soldiers rolled into a swag and tossed over their shoulders while marching.
Squatter: At one time, squatters claimed (seized) land for themselves in addition to land that they had been granted. Eventually through the continuous occupation of the land, their claims were legitimised in the eyes of the law.
Swagman: Someone who lives on the open road. A hobo. The term came from the canvas bag that they would carry their bedroll and/or belongings in.
Trooper: In Australia's early days, there was no police force. The colony was protected by and policed by soldiers.
Even when a police force was eventually formed, they were still referred to as 'troopers'.
Tucker bag: A knapsack or bag for storing food in the bush.
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| I Am Australian |
| by
Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton |
I came from the dream-time, from the dusty red soil plains,
I am the ancient heart the keeper of the flame,
I stood upon the rocky shore I watched the tall ships come,
For forty thousand years I'd been the first Australian.
I came upon the prison ship bound down by iron chains
I cleared the land, endured the lash and waited for the rains.
I'm a settler, I'm a farmer's wife on a dry and barren run
A convict then a free man, I became Australian.
I'm the daughter of a digger who sought the mother lode
The girl became a woman on the long and dusty road
I'm a child of the depression, I saw the good times come
I'm a bushy, I'm a battler, I am Australian.
CHORUS:
We are one but we are many,
and from all the lands on earth we come,
We share a dream, and sing with one voice,
I am, you are, we are Australian.
I'm a teller of stories, I'm a singer of songs
I am Albert Namatjira, and I paint the ghostly gums
I am Clancy on his horse, I'm Ned Kelly on the run
I'm the one who waltzed Matilda, I am Australian.
I'm the hot wind from the desert, I'm the black soil of the plains
I'm the mountains and the valleys, I'm the drought and flooding rains
I am the rock, I am the sky, the rivers when they run
The spirit of this great land, I am Australian.
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| Down Under |
| by
Colin Hay and Ron Strykert |
Travelling in a fried- out Combie,
on a hippy trail, head full of zombie.
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
she took me in and gave me breakfast.
And she said -
Do you come from a land down under,
where woman glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.
Buying bread from a man in Brussels,
he was six foot four and full of muscles.
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich.
And he said -
I come from a land down under,
where beer does flow and men chunder.
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.
Lying in a den in Bombay,
with a slack jaw, and not much to say.
I said to the man, "Are you tryin' to tempt me?"
Because I come from the land of plenty.
And he said -
Do you come from a land down under,
where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.
Click here to hear
"Land Downunder"
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| Home Among The
Gumtrees |
| by
W. Johnson and B. Brown |
I've been around the world a dozen times, or maybe more,
I've seen the sights and had delights on every foreign shore,
But when my friends all ask me the place that I adore,
I tell them right a way.
CHORUS:
Give me a home among the gumtrees, with lots of plum trees,
A sheep or two, a kangaroo, a clothesline out the back,
Verandah out the front and an old rocking chair.
I'll be standing in the kitchen,
Cooking up a roast, with Vegemite on toast,
Just me and you, a cockatoo,
And after tea we'll settle down, beside the hitching post,
And watch the wombats play.
There's a Safeway on the corner,
And a Woolworths down the street,
And a New World's just been opened where they regulate the heat,
But I'd trade them all tomorrow for a simple bush retreat
where kookaburras sing.
Some people like their houses built, with fences all around,
Others live in mansions, or in bunkers underground,
But I won't be content,
Until the day that I have found
The place I long to be.
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| Redback
On The Toilet Seat (1972) |
| by
Ralph Ernest 'Slim' Newton |
There was a redback on the toilet seat, when I was there last night
I didn't see him in the dark, but boy I felt his bite.
I jumped high up into the air and when I hit the ground
That crafty redback spider, wasn't nowhere to be found.
I rushed into the missus, told her just where I'd been bit
She grabbed the cut-throat razor blade, and I nearly took a fit.
I said, "Just forget what's on your mind and call the doctor, please,
'Cause I've got a feeling that your cure is worse than the disease."
CHORUS:
There was a redback on the toilet seat, when I was there last night
I didn't see him in the dark, but boy I felt his bite.
And now I'm here in hospital, a sad and sorry site
And I curse the redback spider, on the toilet seat last night.
I can't lie down, I can't sit up and I don't know what to do
And all the nurses think it's funny, but that's not my point of view.
I tell you it's embarrassing and that to say the least
That I'm too sick to eat a bit, while that spider had a feast.
And when I get back home again, I'll tell you what I'll do
I'll make that redback suffer, for the pain I'm going through.
I've had so many needles, that I'm looking like a sieve
And I promise you that spider, hasn't very long to live.
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