Freedom on the Wallaby

DESCRIPTION: The singer sees freedom in the Australian outback, and recalls how Australia was settled by freedom-loving British citizens. Having built homes, they find the government trying to control them. He calls on citizens to rebel
AUTHOR: Words: Henry Lawson (1867-1922)
EARLIEST DATE: 1891 (Magoffin)
KEYWORDS: Australia political freedom
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Manifold-PenguinAustralianSongbook, pp. 166-167, "Freedom on the Wallaby" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, WALLABBY*
ADDITIONAL: Bill Wannan, _The Australians: Yarns, ballads and legends of the Australian tradition_, 1954 (page references are to the 1988 Penguin edition), pp. 206-207, "Freedom on the Wallaby" (1 text)
Richard Magoffin, _Waltzing Matilda: The Story Behind the Legend_, 1983; revised and illustrated edition, ABC Enterprises, 1987, pp. 47-48, "Freedom on the Wallaby" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Australia's on the Wallaby"
NOTES [230 words]: Magoffin, pp. 44-46, describes this as coming out of the shearers' strike of 1891, which turned violent when the government treated it as outright insurrection, Magoffin says on p. 46 that it made Lawson notorious. O'Keeffe, p. 126, says it was debated in the Queensland parliament, with Lawson branded a "dangerous subversive." O'Keeffe goes on to claim that the lines "She's goin' to light another fire and boil another billy" helped inspire the swagman's billy of "Waltzing Matilda."
While this piece is assuredly by Henry Lawson, it is not clear whether it is an adaption or a forerunner of "Australia's on the Wallaby." Davey/Seal, p. 129, say that there are multiple versions of the text, which is sung to several tunes, but the "Australia's on the Wallaby" tune is widely used.
Manifold, p. 137, says, "'Freedom on the Wallaby' is another Lawson poem that has got itself sung. The first tune I met was reported to have come from Townsville. Another, perhaps a long-range ariant of the former, was tape-recorded by the Folklore Society in Victoria. The words have an affinity to those of an anonymous bush poe printed by 'Bill Bowyang' [i.e. presumably 'Australia's on the Wallaby'], and the tune or tunes may have been transferred directly from one set of words to the other."
According to MacDougall, p. 343, the poem made "blood on the wattle" an Australian byword. - RBW
Bibliography

Davey/Seal: Gwenda Beed Davey and Graham Seal, A Guide to Australian Folklore, Kangaroo Press, 2003
MacDougall: A. K. MacDougall, An Anthology of Classic Australian Lore (earlier published as The Big Treasury of Australian Foiklore), The Five Mile Press, 1990, 2002
Richard Magoffin, Waltzing Matilda: The Story Behind the Legend, 1983; revised and illustrated edition, ABC Enterprises, 1987
Manifold: John S. Manifold, Who Wrote the Ballads? Notes on Australian Folksong, Australasian Book Society, 1964
O'Keeffe: Dennis O'Keeffe, Waltzing Matilda: The Secret History of Australia's Favourite Song, Allen & Unwin, 2012

Last updated in version 5.2
File: PASB167

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