Waltzing Matilda nearby billabong (watering hole), after which his ghost haunts the site. The original lyrics were written in 1895 by Australian poet Banjo Paterson, and were first published as sheet music in 1903. Extensive folklore surrounds the song and the process of its creation, to the extent that it has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, in the Queensland outback, where Paterson wrote the lyrics. In 2012, to remind Australians of the song's significance, Winton organised the inaugural Waltzing Matilda Day to be held on 6 April, the anniversary of its first performance. The song was first recorded
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda to Gallipoli. For "ten weary weeks", he kept himself alive as "around [him] the corpses piled higher". Eventually he is wounded by a shellburst and awakens in hospital to find that both his legs have been amputated. When the ship carrying the young soldiers departs from Australia the band plays "Waltzing Matilda" while crowds wave flags and cheer. When the crippled narrator returns and "the legless, the armless, the blind, the insane" are carried down the gangway to the same popular music, the people watch in silence and turn their faces away. Interviewed by "The Sydney Morning Herald" in 2002,