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Origins of the Christina Macpherson tune

The song came into being as part of the after-dinner musical entertainment at Dagworth. Based on musical and documentary evidence, the tune which Christina Macpherson heard played by the band at the Warrnambool steeplechase was almost certainly the Scottish song ‘Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea’. Robert Tannahill wrote the words in 1805 and in 1818 James Barr set them to music (view image)—music that, in turn, was possibly based on the old melody of ‘Go to the Devil and Shake Yourself’ . Thomas Bulch arranged James Barr’s effort for brass band in 1893 with the alternate spelling, ‘Craigielee’. There is also speculation about the relationship it bears to ‘The Bold Fusilier’, a song dated, in some sources, back to the eighteenth century.

The tune was sprightly and appealing, but the fact that Christina did not know any words gave Banjo Paterson an opportunity to demonstrate his poetic powers and impress the assembled gathering. It seems that Banjo also wanted to impress Christina too, as there is evidence to suggest he was attracted to her.

The two spent the evening and more hours in the next few days fitting Banjo’s words to Christina’s version of the tune. Perhaps the result could be read as a romanticised story of the swagman—shearer Hoffmeister’s death, commemorating the defiant spirit behind his militancy; or perhaps the words hark back to the earlier suicide by drowning of a ‘swaggie’ at Combo waterhole between Dagworth Station and the town of Kynuna. Banjo would have heard the story of the drowning from Bob Macpherson as they rode around the district together. (The Macphersons of Dagworth Station — http://www.waltzingmatilda.com/wmbirth.html)

That aside, it seems that the song began to do the rounds of the district by word of mouth soon after the collaboration by Christina and Banjo. Sydney May, author of the first researched book on ‘Waltzing Matilda’ (view image) asserts that, in April 1895, Christina and Banjo visited Robert Ramsay’s station at Oondooroo, closer to Winton, where the baritone singer Herbert Ramsay lived and where there was a decent piano on which to perform and refine the song. Some years later, Ramsay sang the song at the request of the Queensland Governor, Lord Lamington, at the Post Office Hotel on 29 September 1899. It is also reported that ‘Waltzing Matilda’ was sung at Mick Fahey’s Kynuna Hotel in 1895 during a champagne celebration to mark the final settlement of the Great Shearer’s Strike that had occurred in 1894.

In 1902 the first published version of the ‘Waltzing Matilda’ lyrics was printed by the Hughenden Observer, a Queensland newspaper. Leaflets setting out the words were pasted up in pubs for a sing-along to celebrate with the ‘Greenhide Push’ procession of riders through the town. However, which tune was sung is unknown.

‘Bonnie Wood of Craigielea’ >

 

Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea

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Cover of Sydney May’s The Story of Waltzing Matilda

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