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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 50| April 2001


Who’ll Come a ‘Waltzing Matilda’ With Me?

Dave De Hugard

Dave de Hugard playing an original 1890s button accordion outside the National Library. Photograph: Greg Pook

Netherlands national television visits the National Library of Australia

Waltzing Matilda’ is not only recognised widely by Australians, but has international iconic status and interest. As the unofficial anthem of Australia, it has been used historically in a range of cultural events and contexts linked to concepts of ‘nationhood’, most recently demonstrated through its performance by Slim Dusty at the Sydney Olympic Games. Its ubiquitous performance and status raises a multiplicity of issues about national identity. Its international curiosity value was highlighted by the visit of a Netherlands film crew to the National Library in February to film our unique ‘Waltzing Matilda’ holdings. They also visited the other national cultural institutions in Canberra to further explore aspects of Australia’s culture and heritage.

This Netherlands documentary program, researched and produced by the Dutch writer, columnist and television presenter Boudewijn Büch for his national VARA Television program Boudewijn Büch’s World, traces the cultural and physical ‘landscapes’ of internationally known songs from around the world. Büch’s inquisitiveness about ‘Waltzing Matilda’ led him and his crew to visit the Queensland sites in Winton and Dagworth where Banjo Paterson and Christina MacPherson are thought to have created the song, musically based on a transplanted Scottish marching tune. By further investigating the Library’s Manuscript, Music, Map, Pictorial and Oral History Collections, the team sought to throw light on the oddities of a bush song about a swagman that has come to represent something of the ‘psyche’ of a nation. They were keen to explore, too, the controversies about the song’s creation, publication and intellectual ownership and the numerous artistic works and performances that ‘Waltzing Matilda’ has spawned in music, visual culture and literature.

The core of the Library’s ‘Waltzing Matilda’ collection is a valuable, though tiny, collection of manuscript materials representing the original transcription of the tune by Christina MacPherson (1897) and associated photographs and correspondence, as well as the first published versions of the song (when the song was published with slightly changed words as an advertising tool for ‘Billy Tea’ in 1903) and squatters’ maps from the region in which it was composed. The many unique performances of the song, held in the Oral History Collection of field recordings, were brought to life for the camera by Dave de Hugard, well-known folk music performer and field collector of Australia’s traditional music heritage. Dave performed the song under a ‘coolibah’ tree in the National Library’s grounds on an original 1890s button accordion, in the musical and textual version as first transcribed by Christina MacPherson in the manuscript.
—Robyn Holmes

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