History of Australia (1851–1900) drovers, stockmen and shearers were popular during the 19th century. Convict and bushranger verses often railed against government tyranny. Classic bush songs on such themes include: The Wild Colonial Boy, Click Go The Shears, The Dying Stockman and Moreton Bay. For much of its history, Australia's bush music belonged to an oral and folkloric tradition, and was only later published in print in volumes such as Banjo Paterson's "Old Bush Songs", in the 1890s. The lyrics of Waltzing Matilda, often regarded as Australia's unofficial National anthem, and a quintessential early Australian country music song were composed by the poet Banjo
Waltzing Matilda record and comment on the events of the shearers' strike." A number of alternative theories for the origins or meaning of "Waltzing Matilda" have been proposed since the time it was written; however, most experts now essentially agree on the details outlined above. Some oral stories collected during the twentieth century claimed that Paterson had merely modified a preexisting bush song, but there is no evidence for this. In 1905 Paterson himself published a book of bush ballads he had collected from around Australia entitled "Old Bush Songs", with nothing resembling "Waltzing Matilda" in it. Nor do any other publications