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"Waltzing Matilda" Closes the Sydney 2000 Olympics
The gymnasts, swimmers, runners, ballplayers and wrestlers were done, but if you were watching the closing ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, you saw Australian folk legend Slim Dusty - a kind of Aussie Ramblin' Jack Elliott - lead the crowd in a rousing version of "Waltzing Matilda." The performance topped a night of icon-schlock - horrible Aussie pop stars a la Back Street Boys, Crocodile Dundee brandishing his bowie knife, Elle MacPherson waving nearly nude from a float. Still, 100,000 people singing a folksong via satellite was, even to a hopeless cynic, rather moving.
In keeping with the spirit of the gala occasion and the network coverage, here's a hopelessly commercial site where you can find everything you want to know about the song and its history. You could go to the waltzingmatilda.com homepage and watch the lyrics scroll by, but I recommend skipping this huge, repetitive advertisement and going straight to the history page.
A good way to get a copy of the lyrics - you always wanted them, right? - is
to go to:
http://larocca.homepage.com/waltz.html
You'll also get a more concise story of the song's authorship and a good glossary of all that Aussie dialect - swagman, billabong, matilda....
Forgot the tune (How???)? Here's a cheesy MIDI version at Jerry's Jukebox:
http://wilstar.com/midi/waltzingmatilda.htm
For a short bio of the seventy-three year old country star Slim Dusty,
http://members.tripod.com/~ozcm/slim.html
or get some of Slim's MP3s at:
http://dove.net.au/~lambton/pig/page7.html
On the other hand, my informant Don Shorock in Kansas tells me that Australian
guitarist Tommy Emmanuel, who stole the show at the Winfield Festival this year,
also played at the ceremonies but got cut by NBC. For those of you who want
to check out this amazing guitarist, try:
http://www.tommyemmanuel.com
Happy surfing.
Hugh Blumenfeld, Editor
hugh@balladtree.com
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