This film must hold the record for back to back performances of the most recognisable Aussie folk song.
Funniest when the trout fishing crowds are singing it non-stop from daylight to dark.. it must have more verses than I know about.
"The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
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I'm aware of four or five verses.
~Formerly known as "eowynmaiar".
I think the song was well known long before this movie. I learned it -- as a little boy in a small, remote Texas town -- from Marines returning from the South Pacific after WWII. I learned it all over again when this movie was released in 1959.
What I remember most about the song in this movie is the change -- during the scenes in the fishing camp -- from a raucous, drunken rendetion to a beautiful chorus when the camera whirls around Peck and Gardner and they kiss.
Another poster has suggested an undercurrent of homosexuality in this film, but I didn't notice it when the movie was new, or now. Perhaps homosexuality, like beauty, is sometimes in the eye of the beholder? Of course with Anthony Perkins and Fred Astaire --
There are four verses, the drunken louts sang them over and over again. You can hear them quite clearly.
1. Swagman (hobo) sat and waited for his billy (water jug) to boil
2. Swagman shoved a jumbuck (sheep) in his tucker (food) bag
3. Stockman (livestock farmer) asked where he got that jumbuck in his tucker bag
4. Swagman shouts "you'll never catch me alive"
"Enough of that technical talk, Foo!"
I'm an Aussie. I loathe the way Hollywood usually depicts us. We don't say 'crikey' all the time, we never say 'stone the crows' and we certainly don't sing 'Waltzing Matilda' all the time. In fact, (even back in 1959)apart from school concerts and the odd sporting event we hardly sing it at all. These days the drunks in the movie would be singing 'Khe Sahn', back in 1959 it would have been 'The Pub With no Beer' or 'Shout' or something by Elvis.
For some unknown reason many Aussies love the stupid song and think it should be our national anthem. It's all about an unemployed tramp who camps beside a waterhole, steals a sheep and is caught be the law and the owner of the stolen property. Too cowardly to face the consequences of his own stupid actions he commits suicide by jumping into the waterhole, which then becaome haunted by his ghost. I don't understand why so many of my fellow Aussies want a national anthem that is all about a suicidal thief, but that's Australia for you.
In the context of this movie, I feel that the song is not really meant to be an accurate representation of the Australian People. Instead, it is meant to portray humanity's actions by engaging in a fruitless nuclear war. The song is about a man who has committed a misguided action. Rather than facing his problems, he takes his own life. This is an excellent parallel of what Humanity has done to itself. Instead of working out their problems intelligently, Humanity decided to literally wipe itself off the planet.
shareI really liked the orchestral rendition of the song during the opening credits but it does get very tiresome after a while. Couldn't the composer come up with any original score that didn't have Waltzing Matilda woven into it?
You have to admit that Waltzing Matilda is better than the stupid national anthem we got stuck with in the end. And I think the lyrics are sad. He stole the sheep because he was hungry, but being a free man incapable of settling down, his spirit and his pride wouldn't let him go to jail so he escaped by killing himself.
Another poster has suggested an undercurrent of homosexuality in this film, but I didn't notice it when the movie was new, or now. Perhaps homosexuality, like beauty, is sometimes in the eye of the beholder? Of course with Anthony Perkins and Fred Astaire --
I am thinking the film was not shot in Australia so the non-stop playing of the theme every few minutes or so was to remind the audience "this is Australia." Because that is what Australia is, a place where "waltzing Matilda" plays constantly.
Crikey!
Fiery the angels fell, deep thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc
Ugh. Yes.
You know, if I were a film-maker, and wanted to show my characters becoming annoyed by the endless singing of this song. I would show the first scene w/ the drunks singing it twice or three times tops. Then I would cut to the next scene and have my character say, "It's been 5 hours of this."
There's a real danger in conveying something irritating, that you're going to irritate the audience.
The scores of Max Steiner routinely make use of a similar annoyance. He takes one folk-tune and strangles viewers with variations on it for entire movies:
- Gone with the Wind / (I wish I was in) Dixie
- The Caine Mutiny / From the Halls of Monetezuma
- Grapes of Wrath / Red River Valley
- Casablanca / Le Marseilles
This kind of lazy, formulaic scoring was typical. Others:
- It's a Wonderful Life (Tiomkin) / Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
- Ladykillers (1955) / a movie I love but it plays the same minuet about 15 times.
- Dr Strangelove / When Johnny comes marching home (insanely irritating)
I really didn't have any problem with Max Steiner's scoring of GWTW or TCM.
And It's A Wonderful Life is my favourite movie. I've seen it plenty of times and yet I never noticed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at all.
But those are all very minor examples compared to On the Beach with a total lack of any other tunes.
~Formerly known as "eowynmaiar".
We watched the movie for the first time last night. As a former music major, the constant theme was GREATLY distracting. I couldn't help but hear it within the score and it detracted from my concentration. I agree that the scene with the drunken fishermen and the fading into tenderness was nice, but that would have been plenty for me.
shareI liked it at thew beginning, but I think that because I came to this thread before I saw the movie I was sort of epecting it, and it was very distracting. Music makes a movie and it was just too much.
~Formerly known as "eowynmaiar".
When I was a kid back in the 1960s my father and I used to sing together when he put me to bed, and "Waltzing Matilda" was one of our favorites. I had no idea for years or even decades that it was an Australian song. It's been decades since I saw "On the Beach" and I only remember it as a sad but excellent movie. My father died last March (2007) and now his ghost may be heard whenever someone sings "Waltzing Matilda." My dad liked "On the Beach" too and I suspect that if I watched it again I'd just get all choked up from the music.
I don't recall ever noticing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in "It's a Wonderful Life" either. I haven't seen that movie in a long time either, although I suspect I've seen it more recently and more often than I have "On the Beach."
Why was it nominated for a "Best Music, Scoring..." Academy Award????
shareThe song is about a man who has committed a misguided action. Rather than facing his problems, he takes his own life. This is an excellent parallel of what Humanity has done to itself. Instead of working out their problems intelligently, Humanity decided to literally wipe itself off the planet.
The tune of the "The Star Spangled Banner" was a British drinking song (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Anacreon_in_Heaven). Because of its one and a half octave range, it is difficult for soloists to sing properly.
Many Americans would like to substitute Irving Berlin's "God Bless America", but it would never get past the First Amendment. (Berlin himself would have none of it.)
"Well, there it is."
Many Americans would like to substitute Irving Berlin's "God Bless America", but it would never get past the First Amendment.
_________________________________________________________
"In God we trust" has appeared on U.S. coins since 1864 and on paper currency since 1957.
Was there any music other than Waltzing Matilda? i just heard constant WM over and over.
After fishing by those obnoxious drunks and returning to the lodge with the same annoying song, I would be going nuts, even if it being sung sweetly.
Surely they could have found a couple other songs to break the monotonous droning of WM.
I agree. I wonder does Hollywood think that is the only song we know?
I learned it at school, but have never sung it in any other context.
And as for National Anthem - it's insanity.
Love is never having to say you're sober.
I think it's loved by many mostly for the melody not the lyrics.
shareA nice song but it became very annoying after a while. I can't believe the drunks would be singing it the way they did.
shareI liked the way the played Waltzing Matilda slow and without the words through the movie. It made it more haunting to me. Now when they had the guy sing it right I liked that alot as well.
"Listen, I don't tan, I don't burn, I implode."
The segue from the drunks singing "Waltzing Matilda" to the smoothly sung and orchestrated version was part of the most moving segment in the movie. Firelight, closing the window to the storm, the embrace, the spinning camera shot. I get emotional just thinking about it.
sharethis is a LONG time later.
I agree strongly with you, to me this is a most moving part of the movie and I get tingles and tears every time.
The repetitiveness of the popular tune was intentional, I think. The drunken rendition was meant to be annoying, just like it was annoying to be out in a so called quiet wilderness area with people crowded around, disorderly, and boisterous.
I interpret a subtext in the film not intended by Kramer that I don't recall existed in the book at all. There is a brief moment of love, hope, tenderness, and passion that all of the characters in the film manage to find in the hopeless madness of it all. In the Perkins couple, the wife comes briefly out of her despair and madness to reconnect with Tony. The general and his assistant have a friendly close moment. Astaire character enjoyed his car race win. At the beautiful baritone final verse, Peck and Gardner find true love.
It's short lived.
In the final verse, the lyric usually goes:
and his ghost may be heard as you ride beside the billabong
you'll come a waltzing matilda with me.
In the beautiful baritone version they repeat the verse line:
and his ghost may be heard as you ride beside the billabong
you'll never catch me alive cried he.
Maybe I'm inventing it in my head, but to me, even without a holocaust ending human life, our lives are fleeting, the world is mad, and the maybe the best we can do is that brief moment of connection and tenderness.
The true hopeless part of the movie was that tender scene with Perkins and wife, where she is out of her fog briefly, appreciates the time she had with her mate, but then despairs again realizing her daughter will never have that moment.
Well stated . . . nicely thought out. I think you to be dead on the message.
shareWell stated . . . nicely thought out. I believe you to be dead on regarding the message of this film. Thank you.
shareA nice song but it became very annoying after a while. I can't believe the drunks would be singing it the way they did.
The constant Waltzing Matilda is the main reason my sons prefer the remake of this film.
Love is never having to say you're sober.
Maybe the poster that wrote about that suicidal aspect of Waltzing Matilda was right about one of the reasons this song was chosen to be used the way it was, that was an interesting point. But most everybody seems to be missing something essential to this film and to the experience of living life itself!
The endless Waltzing of Matilda was supposed to be annoying!
The annoyance was intentional. And it was ingenious. It placed us into the story by causing us to sense the end of humanity loom closer and closer. In a year all the streets will be empty, all the people gone and gone forever. No return and no second time around.
The song and the activity was there to put a taste in our mouths that prevented us from forgetting just how irritating it is to be around people often enough. However, as the inevitable end drew near that same irritation began to turn sweet, or more specificly -
Bittersweet to our ears.
One day if you live long enough you might return to the house you grew up in. Perhaps it will be vacant and abandoned. Sit on the porch and remember the sounds that were once familiar to your young ears.
Even the sibling arguments that were once so annoying might bring a smile to your face if you could only hear those sounds one more time. And that is what we were hearing in this film - the last and final sounds of a once vibrant race. How they will be missed...
As annoying as it was to live through those times with friends and family "in the day", how much more sweet it would be to hear it's return some years after the book is closed.
Could this be why the colors of the sky are the most vivid and varied at the end of a day? The leaves of the trees in fall are the most breathtaking just before they fall away and disappear forever on the wind?
How could Waltzing Matilda be anything but joyous beauty to our ears when we long to hear one more refrain but our time has run out?
Look where no one else is looking and see what no one else sees.
LudwigVanGoldfish, I read your post quite a while ago. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about your words. Everything you said is so true.
Life is fragile, and how often most of us would like to "go back" and remember a time (even if perhaps occasionally annoying), when all of our friends/loved ones were once again together. I know I would.
Many thanks for this terrific post. I continue to keep your words in mind.
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I know what Steiner is trying to do in "On the Beach"
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But apparently you don't know that the score was written by Ernest Gold.
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I found the music in this film atrocious from beginning to end.
shareLike the song or not it does of meaning in the context of this movie. "Waltzing Matilda" is about a poacher who steals a sheep. When he is cornered by the authorities chooses death by drowning rather then prison which he sees as worse then death.
In the reality of "On the Beach" everyone knows their going to die a horrible death by radiation sickness. Most plan to cut short the agony by taking death pills distributed by the government. It isn't too surprising they would embrace a song about an individual who chooses suicide over what he sees as a fate worse then death. This becomes obvious the coarse, at the fishing camp sings solo: "You'll never catch me alive said he." Everybody looks at him approvingly.
I would imagine if this movie were being made today and set in the US Blue Ouster Cult"s "Don't Fear the Reaper" would be sung over and over again but, in the late fifties that song was almost two decades in the future. Also the story is set in Australia so "Waltzing Matilda", however annoying, fits.
TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.