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"Waltzing Matilda" is one of Australia's best known songs. The bush ballad, a country folk song, has been called "the unofficial national anthem of Australia".[1] The title, "Waltzing Matilda", is Australian slang for walking through the country looking for work, with one's goods in a "Matilda" (bag) carried over one's back.[2]
The song tells the story of a traveling farm worker boiling a billy at a bush camp and capturing a sheep to eat. When the sheep's owner arrives with three policemen to arrest the worker for taking the sheep, the worker drowns himself in a small watering hole. The worker's ghost stays to haunt the site.
The words to the song were composed in 1895 by poet, Banjo Paterson. The version of "Waltzing Matilda" that we sing today was published as sheet music in 1903 as an advertising jingle for "Billy Tea". There are many stories about the song and how it was written. The song has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, Queensland.
- ↑ The National Library of Australia. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
- ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, Draft Revision March 2001. "Matilda, n."