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
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda at all; they thought it was anti-soldier, but they've come full circle now and they see it's certainly anti-war but not anti-soldier." Written in 1971, the coincidence with the Vietnam War has not been missed as it rails against the romanticising of war. As the old man sits on his porch, watching the veterans march past every Anzac Day, he muses, "The young people ask what are they marching for, and I ask myself the same question". The song was originally eight verses long but Bogle pared it down to five verses. In 1974 Bogle, entered the National Folk Festival