by Dermott Ryder
Travelling south after my rewarding and highly educational sojourn at the iron ore mine Mount Newman, on route to Perth in 1969, I discovered that some small outback towns simply don’t like strangers. Some outback town publicans are feral rednecks. Some outback town policemen – belly bulging and belligerent – are fascists. They hate travellers of any kind, especially hard-drinking, singing construction workers with attitude and with money in their pockets. Mount Magnet, I decided, would never be a favourite tourist destination. My travelling companions Kiwi Peter and Maori Paul agreed. That, however, was forty years ago and one hopes a cure for chronic xenophobia has found favour with the more truculent denizens of the red dust.
We left Mount Magnet in the dust behind us and with no regrets and as we drove we sang songs about “Shanties by The Way” and other establishments more accommodating than the one we had just left. This song, my companions’ assured me was from the singing of Frank Fife of windy Wellington, New Zealand. It was well known to itinerants and others on both sides of Lake Tasman simply because Australians, they told me with feigned outrage, always claim the best New Zealand songs as their own.
Some little time later, in Melbourne, an Australian folk evangelist, with passion and in great detail, set me right. Blind Freddy could work it out, he said. A musical traveller must have carried the song, taken from a work by Australian poet E J Overbury and called Publics By The Way, to New Zealand. The folk process did the rest, a few Kiwis picked up the song, jumbled up the words a bit and there you go. Bloody Kiwis, he told me with a growl, always claim the best Australian songs as their own.
SHANTIES BY THE WAY
Antipodean Traditional
It’s a first-rate business section
where four bush-roads cross and meet.
It stands in a quiet and neat direction,
to rest a weary traveller’s feet.
Kerosene lamps are shining brightly
on the cards and billiard balls.
Men and maids are dancing lightly
to music, song, and fiddler’s calls.
Rows of bottles standing upright
labelled with bright blue and gold,
beer so chilled it needs no icing
from the cellar’s dark and cold.
Cards and pipes, and bagatelles,
all to suit your fancy oh,
but better far, behind the bar,
stands smiling darling Nancy oh.
Nancy’s smiles are quite beguiling,
to make some fun she’s willing oh,
give a rap she’ll turn the tap and
thank you for your shilling oh.
Rows of bottles standing upright
labelled with bright blue and gold,
beer so chilled it needs no icing
from the cellar’s dark and cold.
Landlord stands with smiling face,
he’s glad to see the drinks poured out.
Landlord stands with smiling face;
sometimes he might stand a shout.
Landlord shouting, it’s uncommon;
he’s getting you to sport and play,
the devil a man can never be sober
in those shanties by the way.
Rows of bottles standing upright
labelled with bright blue and gold,
beer so chilled it needs no icing
from the cellar’s dark and cold.
When you wake up in the morning
in your thirst without a mag,
you cast around in sad reflection
as you gather up your swag.
Penniless you’ll have to wander
many a long and weary day
’till you earn cheque to squander
in those shanties by the way.
Rows of bottles standing upright
labelled with bright blue and gold,
beer so chilled it needs no icing
from the cellar’s dark and cold.
National ownership aside, a singer, musician or storyteller, in empathy and in interpretation, may establish an ambient claim to recognition for pre-eminence in presentation within a given community. In any event the words here are largely from the singing of Declan Affley who, with consummate ease, made this and many other songs his own.
Declan Affley [1939-1985], Welsh born of Irish stock spent his teen-years a member of the British Merchant Service. He arrived in Sydney, Australia circa 1960. His arrival coincided with the start of the folk music revival. As a boy he played clarinet but he set it aside in favour of guitar, banjo, tin whistle, fiddle and uilleann pipes, an instrument he referred to as the Kilkenny Gasworks, especially when it disassembled itself on stage mid-performance. His 25 years participation in the folk life of Australia, in music, song and humour will resonate for many years to come.
© Dermott Ryder 2010
This entry was posted by Dermott Ryder on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Folkwatcher's Odyssey.
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