It is interesting to see how the progress of settlement is reflected in the various songs. Beginning with the crude early days, when there was land and to spare, and when labour was in demand and Australia was terra incognita to all, we find in “Paddy Malone” a fitting chronicle in rhyme. In this ballad a raw, Irish immigrant tells of his adventures in the Australian bush. He was put to shepherding and bullock-driving, which in itself proves that labourers were at a premium, and that instead of a man having to hunt for a job the job had to hunt for the man. He lost his sheep, and the bullocks got away from him. It will be noticed that there is no mention of fences or roads in this ballad, as in the “Paddy Malone” days fences and roads were not very much met with. Compare also “The Beautiful Land of Australia.” In this the settler reaches Sydney, and “Upon the map I chose my land,” which shows that there was land enough and to spare, and that the system of grants to free immigrants was in full swing. It is noticeable that in all the ballads of early days there is a sort of happy-go-lucky spirit which reflects the easy-come, easy-go style of the times.
Next in order come the ballads of the days when the squatters had established themselves, and the poorer classes found it harder to live. “The Squatter’s Man” is a balled of these harder times. Compare it with “Paddy Malone.” There is no talk of sending a new-chum out with sheep and bullocks now. The first rush of settlement is over, and the haughty squatter contemptuously offers ten shillings a week as wages to a man for a variety of drudgery that is set out with much spirit in the song.
Next come the free-selection days, when the runs of these squatters were thrown open to purchase on certain easy conditions, and at once the ballads change their tone, and there is quite a pæan of victory in “The Free Selector—a Song of 1861.” The reader will note that “The Land Bill has passed and the good time has come,” and further on the singer says
“We may reside
In a home of our own by some clear waterside.”
The squatters also had a word to say, and “The Broken-down Squatter” puts their side of the case in a sort of ad misericordiam appeal; while “The Eumerella Shore” is a smart hit at the cattle-stealers who availed themselves of the chances afforded by the new state of things in the country. Later still comes the time when the selectors became employers of labour, and “The Stringy-bark Cockatoo,” though rough in style and versification, is a splendid hit at the new squireens. A “cockatoo,” it should be explained, is a small settler, and the stringy-bark tree is an unfailing sign of poor land; and the minstrel was much worse treated when working for “The Stringy-bark Cockatoo” than when he was a “Squatter’s man.”
So much for the historical element; now as to the songs themselves. As metrical compositions they cannot be expected to rank high. In all her history England has produced only a few good ballads, and ballads do not get justice from cold print. An old Scotchman, to whom Sir Walter Scott read some of his collected ballads, expressed the opinion that the ballads were spoilt by printing. And these bush songs, to be heard at their best, should be heard to an accompaniment of clashing shears when the voice of a shearer rises through the din caused by the rush and bustle of a shearing shed, the scrambling of the sheep in their pens, and the hurry of the pickers-up; or when, on the roads, the cattle are restless on their camp at night and the man on watch, riding round them, strikes up “Bold Jack Donahoo” to steady their nerves a little. Drovers know that they must not sneak quietly about restless cattle—it is better to sing to them and let them know that someone is stirring and watching; and many a mob of wild, pike-horned Queensland cattle, half inclined to stampede, has listened contentedly to the “Wild Colonial Boy” droned out in true bush fashion till the daylight began to break and the mob was safe for another day. Heard under such circumstances as these the songs have quite a character of their own. A great deal depends, too, on the way in which they are sung. The true bushman never hurries his songs. They are designed expressly to pass the time on long journeys or slow, wearisome rides after sheep or tired cattle; so the songs are sung conscientiously through—chorus and all—and the last three words of the song are always spoken, never sung. There is, too, a strong Irish influence in the greater number of the songs; quite a large proportion are sung to the tune of the “Wearing of the Green,” and the admixture of Irish wit and Irish pathos in their composition can only be brought out by a good singer.
One excuse, if excuse be needed, for the publication of this collection is the fact that the songs it contains are fast being forgotten. Thirty or forty years ago every station and every shearing shed had its singer, who knew some of the bush songs. Nowadays they are never sung, and even in districts where they took their rise they have pretty well died out. Only a few years ago, every shearing shed had at least one minstrel who could drone out the refrain of a shearing song—
“But, oh, boys, such sheep I never shore,
As those that made us knuckle down at Goorianawa”
But the Goorianawa sheep are not celebrated in song nowadays, and advertisement has failed to produce a copy of the song. Down in the rough country near the Upper Murrumbidgee, where the bushranger Gilbert was betrayed by a relative and was shot by the police, there was a song about “Dunn, Gilbert, and Ben Hall” It commenced—
“Come all ye lads of loyalty and listen to my tale,
A story of bushranging days I will to you unveil,
’Tis of those gallant heroes, we’ll bless them one and
all,
And we’ll sit and sing long live the King, Dunn, Gilbert,
and Ben Hall.”