1346. The Gumtree with Six Branches (Walter P. Keen and Warren Fahey)

This is the last of my uploads for Australia Day, the official national day of Australia, celebrated annually on 26th January, which commemorates the arrival of the first boat people from Britain on the eastern seaboard of what was then known as New Holland. The choice of this event is somewhat controversial as it tends to ignore the fact that Australia had already been settled somewhere between forty and eighty thousand years ago by the native aboriginals, who lacked the technology to turn back the invading boats.

Some have suggested that the creation of the Federation of Australia in 1901, which united what were six separate British colonies, is a more appropriate event to commemorate, but this had no chance as it took place on 1st January, which is already a rather significant holiday.

In any case I have chosen this song about the Federation of Australia as my final song for Australia Day. It was found in "The Imperial Songster" and probably sung at the Tivoli Music Hall in about 1910. It is believed to have been written by Walter P. Keen. Joe Salter published it and wrote the music.

Warren Fahey discovered the song in 1979 and put it to a different melody. He was quite impressed by the suggestion that water was the most important element in uniting the colonies.

Of course, the gumtree now has two extra branches - the Northern Territory and the ACT (Australian Capital Territory).

You can see a playlist of my Australian songs here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0DE11C284435E7A2

For lyrics and chords of all my songs, please see my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• folk
• song
• federation
• australia
• water
• music
• hall
• warren
• fahey
• victoria
• new
• south
• wales
• queensland
• tasmania
• western

[geoman7447]

Great performance, Raymond! And thank you for the history lesson. Of course, we stole our country from the Native Americans too and now, in our state, they are trying to build an iron ore open pit mine in the lands where many of our Native American people live. We liberals are fighting with our NA brothers to stop this travesty but the conservatives are in power now and it doesn't look good. Glad to hear you had a happy Australia Day!

[raymondcrooke]

@geoman7447 Thanks for your comment. It's a bit ironic that the words "conservative" and "conservation" come from the same root. They don't seem very interested in conserving these lands!

[barttheanorak]

Have you thought of covering Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil?

[raymondcrooke]

@barttheanorak No.

[Inseok232Akira]

HAPPY Australia day. In Korea we say 호주날

[raymondcrooke]

@Inseok232Akira Thank you. My wife and I have had a very enjoyable day.

[raymondcrooke]

@jeb1900 I enjoyed your RAP NEWS report on Australia Day!

[jeb1900]

Australia day!

[raymondcrooke]

@k6tpl You're welcome, Jer.

[raymondcrooke]

@FolkAndMore Thanks for watching, Wolfgang.