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 Bells of Rhymney The Bells of Rhymney "The Bells of Rhymney" is a song first recorded by folk singer Pete Seeger, which consists of Seeger's own music and words written by Welsh poet Idris Davies. The lyrics to the song were drawn from part of Davies' poetic work "Gwalia Deserta", which was first published in 1938. The work was inspired by a local coal mining disaster and by the failure of the 1926 General Strike, with the "Bells of Rhymney" stanzas following the pattern of the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons". In addition to Rhymney, the poem also refers to the bells of