CORN COBS AND CUDDLES...

Our old mate Ed Sorenson again provides some eyewitness insight into the way bush folk made and played their own music in the nineteenth century. In his Life in the Australian Backblocks (1911), he describes the farming custom of ‘corn-husking’, which is exactly what it sounds like, plus music and the opportunity for young couples to do some courting. At corn-husking concerts, or parties:

‘A farmer takes his family to a neighbour's tonight, and spends the evening (a farmer's evening runs to midnight) husking his corn. Next night the neighbour and his family return the visit, and on the following night, probably, some other farmer's barn is visited. This is the farmer's "at home" night, and for entertainment all the gossip of the district is ventilated, yarns are told, and songs are sung—while working; Sarah Jones's engagement with Jim Smith is announced, and all the remarkable and unremarkable incidents in the lives of the old people are aired—an interesting jumble of gold-digging, blacks, and bushrangers.’

Amongst all this gossiping, yarning and music-making:

‘The young folks enjoy these parties; the work is much more pleasant, and time doesn't drag. But the system is not followed to any great extent. There is too much talking for the average farmer (a lot of people can't work and talk, and some can't work and listen), and too much time is lost tramping to and fro, while the young people get playing and giggling. Many a courtship has started at those husking parties, and many a union could be traced back to the sly hand-clasps and squeezes when fumbling for cobs.’

As far as the courting and cuddling opportunities went, according to Sorenson, ‘a husking party offers many advantages over the bush dance.’ 

Surely, people were listening to the music, weren’t they?

Graham Seal

The Billy-Boiling Stakes

Our old mate Ed Sorenson again provides some eyewitness insight into the way bush folk made and played their own music in the nineteenth century. In his Life in the Australian Backblocks(1911), he describes the bush travellers’ competitive billy boiling custom. This was a serious business, it seems, and demanded knowledge of the folk science of boiling water in a billy, a standard necessity of bush life:

‘Among some travellers billy-boiling takes the form of a competition. The man of experience, looking over an array of well-used billies, says: "I'll back my billy to boil first." Interest being thus awakened, the others then put fiery spurs to their own utensils, each waiting, with tea-bag in hand, for the first ripple. Of course, some are specially adapted for quick boiling, whilst others are "naturally slow." A man with a quick boiler is always ready to back it against any other. He understands it, and can judge its boiling-time to within a few seconds. An old billy will boil quicker than a new one. The water is also worth considering. River-water will boil quicker than rain-water, stagnant water quicker than running water, whilst water that has once been boiled and cooled will boil again quicker than any other.’

The iconic billy is a standard feature of bush lore and songs like ‘My Old Black Billy’ and, after a little doctoring by the advertising industry, in the best-known version of ‘Waltzing Matilda.’ These competitions also provided another opportunity for making music, as Sorenson goes on to describe:

‘Yet, there is many a tedious wait for the billy to boil, and rejoicing of hungry ones when it begins to bubble. The old diggers on Ballarat and Bendigo used to sing, "Oh, what would you do if the billy boiled over?" when it was time to make the tea. And what legends are wrapped around the billy! Yarns are always being told, and bush songs are always being sung around a million camp fires while the billy boils.’

So, as the song goes:

You can sing of your whisky and sing of your beer

There’s something much nicer awaiting me here

It sits on the fire beneath the gum tree

There’s nothing much nicer than a billy of tea!

MORE ON BUSH MUSIC

Here’s another item on bush music. The blokes in this drawing were celebrating New Year’s Eve, sometime around the 1890s. The picture and accompanying description comes from Edward Sorenson’s classic book, Life in the Australian Backblocks(1911).

Barely-known today, Edward Sorenson was a successful writer and journalist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Queensland and spending most of his life in the bush, he knew what he was talking about and his writings provide sharp observations of bush life and customs, including music. Here he is on a night at a bullock camp:

‘Bullock camps were once plentiful along the main roads. Not infrequently there would be fifty or sixty men in camp, and, gathered round the blazing log fires, they would mix the yarns of the roads with songs and music. Two out of every three teams carried a concertina or a violin. Travellers joined them, and many a time bushrangers have shared their fires; more than once the lawless bands have helped themselves to the cargo. This, of course, was in the long ago, when bullock-driving had its thrills and possessed something of the picturesque features of the southern overlanders.’

And again, this time on travelling ‘cattle-men, scalpers, brumby-hunters, buffalo- shooters, or prosperous diggers.’ When camped together for the night their ‘packs will produce two or three different musical instruments, and music, songs, recitations, and yarning alternate till late at night, while a dozen horse-bells are jingling in the bush around them.’

Sorenson mentions the central role of music in bush entertainment a few times in his book but also points out that it was rare, in his experience, at least, to find anyone who could sing a complete song. If this is accurate, and it probably is, it could explain why collectors often collect what have been called ‘fragments’ of traditional song. The Sally Sloane’s and Simon McDonald’s were probably as scarce as hen’s teeth.

The impromptu New Year’s Eve band in the picture has a couple of whistles, a concertina and a kerosene drum. The musicians are wearing bell-bottom trousers, popular with larrikins at the period. One of the whistlers is wearing a bowyang tied beneath his knee, an indication that he is a working man.

Along with our other posts on this topic, this helps us a picture of traditional bush music in its social contexts at a period when it was a major form of everyday, DIY entertainment and socialising.