"Brisbane Ladies" is an Australian folksong and is one of many adaptations of the traditional British naval song "Spanish Ladies". The song is also known as "Augathella Station". It is numbered 21114 on the Roud Folk Song Index.[1]
History
[edit]The lyric dates back to at least the 1880s and is credited to a jackaroo-turned-shopkeeper named Saul Mendelsohn, who lived near Nanango. The place names used in the song were part of the route that cattle drovers used when returning from cattle sales in Brisbane to the cattle station at Augathella in South West Queensland.[2] Those place names include Toowong, Augathella, Caboolture, Kilcoy, Colinton's Hut, Blackbutt, Bob Williamson's paddock, Taromeo, Yarraman Creek, Nanango and Toomancie.
Text and music
[edit]
Farewell and adieu to you, Brisbane ladies,
farewell and adieu, you maids of Toowong.
We've sold all our cattle and we have to get a movin',
but we hope we shall see you again before long.
Chorus:
We'll rant and we'll roar like true Queensland drovers,
we'll rant and we'll roar as onward we push
until we return to the Augathella station.
Oh, it's flamin' dry goin' through the old Queensland bush.
The first camp we make, we shall call it the Quart Pot,
Caboolture, then Kilcoy, and Colinton's Hut,
we'll pull up at the Stone House, Bob Williamson's paddock,
and early next morning we cross the Blackbutt.
Chorus
Then on to Taromeo and Yarraman Creek, lads,
it's there we shall make our next camp for the day,
where the water and grass are both plenty and sweet, lads,
and maybe we'll butcher a fat little stray.
Chorus
Then on to Nanango, that hard-bitten township[a]
where the out-of-work station-hands sit in the dust,
where the shearers get shorn by old Tim, the contractor.
Oh, I wouldn't go near there, but I flaming well must!
Chorus
The girls of Toomancie,[b] they look so entrancing,
like bawling young heifers they're out for their fun,
with the waltz and the polka and all kinds of dancing
to the rackety old banjo of Bob Anderson.
Chorus
Then fill up your glasses, and drink to the lasses,
we'll drink this town dry, then farewell to them all,
and when we've got back to the Augathella Station,
we hope you'll come by there and pay us a call.[6]
Recordings
[edit]"Brisbane Ladies" has been performed and recorded by a number of various Australian artists, including bush bands.
- Snake Gully Bush Band[7]
- The Wild Colonial Boys[8]
- John Greenway on the 1959 album Australian Folksongs and Ballads[9]
- Gary Shearston on the 1964 album Folk Songs and Ballads of Australia[10]
- The Bushwackers, under the title of "Augathella Station" on the album Murrumbidgee[citation needed]
- Hoyt Axton recorded "Brisbane Ladies" on his album Greenback Dollar, Live at the Troubadour[11]
References
[edit]- ^ "Roud Number 21114". archives.vwml.org. English Folk Dance and Song Society/Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
- ^ "Bisbane Ladies", liner notes to Folk Songs and Ballads of Australia by Gary Shearston, 1964
- ^ "Spanish Ladies", Music for Music Teachers
- ^ Jerry Silverman (2011). "Farewell to the Ladies of Brisbane". Songs of Australia. Mel Bay. pp. 44–45. ISBN 9781610650496.
- ^ Reinhard Zierke (19 January 2024). "Brisbane Ladies / Augathella Station". Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
- ^ "Brisbane Ladies". All Poetry. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
- ^ "The Music and Dances of the Snake Gully Bush Band"
- ^ "The Wild Colonial Boys track list"
- ^ "Australian Folksongs and Ballads by John Greenway", Smithsonian Folkways
- ^ "Gary Shearston: Folk Songs and Ballads of Australia (1964)
- ^ Greenback Dollar: Recorded Live At The Troubadour at Discogs
External links
[edit]- "Brisbane Ladies", Australian Folk Songs
- "Brisbane Ladies", by Roger McGuinn, Folk Den, 1 April 1997