Country music or the lives of bushrangers, swagmen, drovers, stockmen and shearers, continue to influence the genre. This strain of Australian country, with lyrics focusing on Australian subjects, is generally known as "bush music" or "bush band music". "Waltzing Matilda", often regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem, is a quintessential Australian country song, influenced more by British and Irish folk ballads than by American country and western music. The lyrics were composed by the poet Banjo Paterson in 1895. Other popular songs from this tradition include "The Wild Colonial Boy", "Click Go the Shears", "The Queensland Drover" and "The Dying Stockman". Later
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