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
Waltzing Matilda at the old billy boiling, Who'll come a "roving Australia" with me? "Chorus:" Who'll come a "rovin" (rest missing) Who'll come a waltzin' Matilda with me? Waltzing Matilda and leading a "tucker" bag. Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me?</poem> It has been suggested that these changes were from an even earlier version, and that Paterson was talked out of using this text, but the manuscript does not bear this out. In particular, the first line of the chorus was corrected before it had been finished, so the original version is incomplete. The first published version, in 1903, differs slightly