Australian country music link Australia's vast distances. Isolation and loneliness of life in the Australian bush has been another theme. 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. Waltzing Matilda, often regarded as Australia's unofficial National anthem, is a quintessential early Australian country song, influenced more by Celtic folk ballads than by American Country and Western music. The lyrics were composed by the poet Banjo Paterson in 1895. This strain of Australian country music, with lyrics focusing
The Way We Were: Original Soundtrack Recording the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 46th Academy Awards, with Hamlisch also winning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the film's score (which is featured on the soundtrack). "The Way We Were" also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1974 and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1975. Despite not providing the album a written review by one of its critics, AllMusic managed to rate it three out of five stars. In the United States, the album debuted at number 82 on the "Billboard" 200