"Waltzing Matilda" - Slim Dusty (video)

As down-home Australian as anything ever gets.  America loves country music and so does Australia with Slim Dusty being one of the most loved performers.  (WIKI:  Slim Dusty)

You have likely heard of The Seekers and they're Australian as well.

Oh yeah, I'm wallowing in it this morning (larfs).  My eyes get all teary and I laugh at myself at the same time.


"Waltzing Matilda" isn't the official album but it might as well be.  I'm not sure if it affects my sibs in the same way or as much since I was the oldest so maybe I absorbed more of it.  No way to know but it's a powerful thing.


Maybe I was kind of teasing on this with the bit yesterday because that got me going, yep, got to hear it.  Time for "Waltzing Matilda" (larfs).


Here's a wee bit of family nostalgia:  either of my parents could shout out 'CHECK IN' and all of the kids must come immediately from wherever we are to line up according to age in front of whomever it was.  Failure to do so met with a seriously-angry response.

That sounds so Achtung! but it was life-saving.  If they had not done that on a regular basis with six kids who were close to uncontrollable then there would have been casualties for sure.  They didn't lose one and, in Australia, that's kind of remarkable.

Australia really isn't that dangerous but it has fo' real life-threatening possibilities just about anywhere you go.  If you're aware then you probably won't get bit ... but ... otherwise, you are food.

Figure for yourself the nightmare of taking six kids to an Australia beach with active lifesavers (i.e. Australian for lifeguards) on active watch for sharks.  There are jellyfish in the water and some of them are extremely painful to lethal.  And spiders ... some bigger than your hand.  It's the little ones which will kill you, tho.

Six kids ... and you ... how are you doin', Mom?  How is Blogger Mom doin' with this, huh?  (larfs)


It's been my thinking the uncontrollability wasn't neglect but deliberate because he knew if he tried to cage us then one or more would end up in jail.  It's more luck than judgment we didn't anyway.  We never did anything really terrible but we damn sure would have been busted hard for some of it.  Really I'm grateful for that as he was tyrannical when he felt he needed to be and that made it clear there were limits to uncontrollability but it was wide open up until that line.

There's no chance the sibs and much of the neighborhood can have forgotten that Hosea Ave 'mansion' in Clifton and how it was running hippie freak wild for years and getting more so all the time until people started peeling off, usually to get married.  Then RL came to all except me and one sister.


My life seems a failure behind all those clouds of reefer smoke but that's more apparent than real.  Every musician is risking no-one will ever give a rat's patootie about what you play but it's a worthy risk because you still get the music.  Whatever anyone else may think of it, I got to play things I never even imagined I could possibly play and making sounds I thought only gods could achieve.  For me, the success is being able to do it and the financial reward is a shell around it which gives big cars and lots of coke ... interesting but really not necessary and probably not good.

Let's not wobble on coke:  you can't handle it.  Don't fuck with it.

Maybe one time you can get away with it.  But then you keep going back and you won't get away with that.


So, yah, I'm broke but there are multiple things which can stab my heart much deeper than that.  Meanwhile, the Galaxy Guitar sits behind me.  Physical strength to play her is highly variable and this is under heavy study for reasons.  I don't eat the same things and expect anything to change, etc.  There's no wistfulness but rather it's wtf and figure it out.

Frasers don't give up.  It's not allowed, man (larfs).  Maybe that's being Australian but it works either way.


Waltzing Matilda, Matilda, my darlin',
You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me.
He sang and he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me."