Eric Bogle And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda Lyrics

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda Lyrics

"And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"

- Eric Bogle



Now when I was
a young man, I carried me pack, and I lived the free life of a rover

From
the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback, well, I waltzed my Matilda all
over.

Then in 1915, my country said son, It's time you stopped rambling,
there's work to be done.

So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun,
and they marched me away to the war.



And the band played Waltzing
Matilda, as the ship pulled away from the quay

And amidst all the cheers,
the flag-waving and tears, we sailed off for Gallipoli

And how well I
remember that terrible day, how our blood stained the sand and the
water

And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay, we were butchered
like lambs at the slaughter.

Johnny Turk he was waiting, he'd primed himself
well. He shower'd us with bullets,

And he rained us with shell. And in five
minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell

Nearly blew us right back to
Australia.



But the band played Waltzing Matilda, when we stopped to
bury our slain.

We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs, then we
started all over again.

And those that were left, well we tried to survive,
in that mad world of blood, death and fire

And for ten weary weeks, I kept
myself alive, though around me the corpses piled higher

Then a big Turkish
shell knocked me arse over head, and when I woke up in my hospital bed,

And
saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead. Never knew there was worse
things than dyin'.



For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda, all around
the green bush far and free

To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs-no
more waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded,
the maimed, and they shipped us back home to Australia.

The legless, the
armless, the blind, the insane, those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And as
our ship pulled into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me legs used to
be.

And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me, to grieve, to mourn,
and to pity.



But the band played Waltzing Matilda, as they carried us
down the gangway.

But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared, then they
turned all their faces away

And so now every April, I sit on me porch, and I
watch the parades pass before me.

And I see my old comrades, how proudly
they march, reviving old dreams of past glories

And the old men march
slowly, old bones stiff and sore. They're tired old heroes from a forgotten
war

And the young people ask, what are they marching for? And I ask myself
the same question.



But the band plays Waltzing Matilda, and the old
men still answer the call,

But as year follows year, more old men
disappear. Someday no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda,
Waltzing Matilda, who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

And their ghosts
may be heard as they march by that billabong, who'll come a-waltzing Matilda
with
me?



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NOTES:

"Matilda"
- the backpack and associated gear used by livestock drovers and
prospecters

in remote areas of the Australian outback.

"Swag" - canvas
sleeping bag

"Billabong" - creek or estuary, generally with an outlet to
the sea and containing more or less brackish water.



Historical
Note:

The Gallipoli Campaign (April 25, 1915-January 8, 1916),

a major
land and sea operation of World War I, in which

British, French,
Australian, and New Zealand forces

unsuccessfully attempted an invasion of
Turkey.

The action was confined to the Dardanelles Strait

and the tip
of the Gallipoli (Gelibolu) Peninsula near

Istanbul. The purpose of the
campaign, devised by British

munitions minister David Lloyd George, first
lord of the

admiralty Winston Churchill, General Herbert H.
Kitchener,

and Admiral Sackville H. Carden, was to open up a
new

theater of war as an alternative to the stalemate in

France, to
relieve Turkish pressure on Russian forces

in the Caucasus, and, by gaining
control of Istanbul

and the straits, to provide a direct link with
Russia

via the Black Sea. This campaign is also significant

for
Australians in that it marked the first time a major

Australian military
force was commanded by Australian,

instead of English,
officers.



What initially was to be exclusively a naval
operation

failed in February 1915 when several British and French

ships
were damaged by floating mines. A land invasion was

then decided on, but it
was not begun until late April.

An amphibious landing at that time was met
with heavy

resistance by the Turks. Excessive caution and
timorous

leadership by the British commander, Sir Ian
Hamilton,

resulted in several lost initiatives. Little headway

was made
beyond the several beachheads. In early August,

after three months of
stalemate and stagnation on the

beaches, a new major offensive was begun.
Once again,

however, the excessive caution and indifferent
leadership

of the British command offset the effect of
heavy

reinforcements. The Turkish forces, on the other hand,
were

inspired by the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Kemal Atatürk,

later
president of Turkey) and the skill of their German

commander, Otto Liman von
Sanders. After a few more months

of stalemate, Hamilton was replaced by Sir
Charles Monro,

who was sent to evaluate the situation. Monro
recommended

evacuation, and the allied forces were withdrawn in
December

and January. British casualties were 205,000 out of
410,000;

the French sustained a rate of 47,000 out of 79,000;
Turkish,

250,000 to 300,000 out of 500,000. The fiasco badly

stained
the reputations of Churchill, Hamilton, and Kitchener.

Despite its overall
failure, however, the Gallipoli campaign

weakened the Turks enough to
facilitate the British seizure

of Palestine in 1917. The action also
distracted the Germans

from a plan they had in 1915 to begin another
offensive in France.