Brisbane Ladies

DESCRIPTION: The singer bids farewell to the Brisbane Ladies, promising, "We'll rant and we'll roar like true Queensland natives...." He describes the trip he and the boys make from town "to the old cattle station. What joy and delight is the life in the bush!"
AUTHOR: Saul Mendelsohn? (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1891 (_Boomerang_ magazine, according to AndersonStory)
KEYWORDS: travel work Australia
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Fahey-Eureka-SongsThatMadeAustralia, pp. 162-163, "Brisbane Ladies" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fahey-PintPotAndBilly, p, pp. 26-27, "Ladies of Brisbane" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manifold-PenguinAustralianSongbook, pp. 120-121, "Ladies of Brisbane (The Drover's Song)"; pp. 122-123, "Ladies of Brisbane (Augathella Station)" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal-OldBushSongs-CentenaryEdition, pp. 214-216, "Brisbane Ladies" (1 text)
Anderson-StoryOfAustralianFolksong, pp. 226-227, "The Drover's Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Stewart/Keesing-FavoriteAustralianBallads, pp. 41-42, "Farewell and Adieu to You, Brisbane Ladies" (1 text)
DT, QUNSLAND*
Roud #687
RECORDINGS:
John Greenway, "Brisbane Ladies" (on JGreenway01)
A. L. Lloyd, "Brisbane Ladies" (on Lloyd4, Lloyd08)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Spanish Ladies" (plot, tune, lyrics) and references there
NOTES [182 words]: An Australian rewrite of "Farewell and Adieu to you Spanish Ladies." The differences between the two, in this case, strike me as large enough to require separate classification.
According to John S. Manifold, Who Wrote the Ballads? Notes on Australian Folksong, Australasian Book Society, 1964, p. 91, "In about 1890, a Mr Saul Mendelsohn at Nanango (jackarooing there, if I rightly recall what his son told me some years ago) came across the song [i.e. "Spanish Ladies"] and wrote a sort of parody, changing teh sea-marks into landmarks, and the voyage from Ferrol into a homeward trip from Brisbne. Under the name of 'The Drover's Song' it was published in The Boomerang in 1891... Sentiments and diction alike are irreproachably jackaroo, except where lines of the sea-going original are retained." Manifold on p. 92 prints two verses of this to prove his point; the text is also available in Anderson-StoryOfAustralianFolksong. But then Manifold demonstrates how much oral tradition has changed the Mendelsohn text. Can it still be regarded as Mendelsohn's? Opinions may well vary. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: FaE162

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