Lyr Add: Australian songs about rabbits

Subject: Rabbits down under
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 07 Jul 00 - 06:10 AM

G'day all,

Just to prove that we Aussies aren't entirely obsessed with sheep, I have, firstly in response to a request and totally off my own bat in the second instance, provided lyrics and tunes for two Australian songs about rabbits (actually, rabbit-trapping - a great necessity until biological controls like myxamatosis and calcivirus have got the rabbit plague under something like control).

The songs are Stan Wakefield's The Rabbiter and another collected from Basil Cosgrove; The Rabbit Trapper's Song. I should post them out here where they can be sighted and considered for the DigiTrad, but I'm hoping this is sufficient flagging up.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rabbits down under
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 07 Jul 00 - 06:25 AM

G'day again,

Oh yes - I should have said that the other thread's name was The Rabbiter's Song - Stan Wakefield , started by "GUEST: Mark Campbell", who is percussionist/didgeridoo player in the creative/Celtic/Australian band Tursacan ... and has been such a regular here that he had better get around to signing up!).

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rabbits down under
From: GUEST,Mark Campbell
Date: 10 Jul 00 - 12:18 AM

I think I have signed up.

I will check on that. Maybe I should log-on.

Anyway.. .songs about Rabbits, that's what I'm here for.

And as always Bob Bolton comes up with the info.

Thanks See you in the members bar.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Rabbits down under
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 10 Jul 00 - 03:12 AM

G'day Mark,

As I understand it, once you registration sticks, you won't get the cautionary GUEST, prefix when you post (apart from which, you get all those useful facilities, like being able to check all posts by anyone whose work interests you - or your own ... discovering that you have posted 677 times over the past 2 year! - and being able to send private messages to individuals when raising a thread would just clutter things).

Anyway, if it hasn't registered, have a ponder of the FAQ at the head of the forum and see what hasn't been done.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BALLAD OF THE BUNNY (Gilrooney)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 04:56 PM

Despite there being a broader thread called Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits, I figure this "song" belongs here, especially since the rabbits are not being treated with great sympathy.

I'm not sure this is(was) really a song, although it is labeled as such. But it could work as a recitation, or maybe you could find a tune for it.

From The Gundagai [NSW] Independent and Pastoral, Agricultural and Mining Advocate, Wed 22 Jan 1902, Page 2:

[This poem was also reprinted in several other Australian newspapers.]


THE BALLAD OF THE BUNNY.
(AS SUNG BY FATHER.)

The fence is down on Dooley's side,
The line of chock an' logs;
The fence that once was Dooley's pride
Is tumblin' to the dogs.
An' soon it must be rabbit proof—
He calls it just a sin
To start an' build a nettin' fence
To keep the rabbits in.

They've gone an' eaten Dooley out
Right to the bound'ry line,
An' when there ain't a blade about
They're bound to tackle mine.
It doesn't trouble him a pin—
It's wonderful to see
The way he dodges poisonin',
An' leaves it all to me.

I'm at it in the dawnin' light
Upon the poison cart,
An' then again before the night—
A-breakin' of my heart;
In leisure and in labor time,
An' all to see 'em grow
As thick upon the crimson farm
As hatters down below.

And when the Board's Inspector comes,
I hope he'll understand
The ways I take to 'radicate
The pest on Dooley's land.
An' dam the bit does Dooley care—
It's wonderful to see
The way he shirks 'is equal share,
An' leaves the job to me.

Gilrooney.

Subject: Lyrics-Stan Wakefield
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 06:15 PM

25 years later I might as well post Bob's songs

Tune Req: The Rabbiter's Song (Stan Wakefield) - https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=23038#253190

THE RABBITER
Words and music: Stan Wakefield

I read about the fortunes that the rabbiters make outback -
The sporting life and the lairy tales of prices fetched at Sydney sales,
So I started out across New South Wales on the roving rabbiters' track.

CHORUS: With a hool-em-up and a sool-em-up And the fool-em-up decoys;
The men who scalp the rabbiters Are the Sydney market boys.

A free and independent life, a life of simple joys
I camped beneath an old belah ' and my tucker was mostly fried galah,
And I trapped 'em near and I trapped 'em far, for the Sydney market boys.

I poisoned out at Hillston, and I trapped at Gundagai,
I followed 'em over creeks and bogs, and chopped 'em out of hollow logs,
And tailed 'em up with yelping dogs, 'way back of Boggabri.

Besides the bunnies that you catch, there's things that you despise:
A hawk, a snake, a crow, a rat., a bandicoot, a tiger cat,
And when you're lucky, a lamb that's fat is a welcome enough surprise.

I skinned and scalped and scalped and skinned, till my back was nearly broke,
With blood and muck all stiff and brown, the stink of my clothes would knock you down,
And I slaved all day for half a crown for the Sydney market bloke.

I thought I'd get a snifter cheque for skins I sent from Bourke,
But the broker rogues in Sydney Town, they weigh them short and they grade them down,
And they sent me back three lousy pound, for a month of slavin' work.

Some day we're going to set our traps to catch the hungry crew
Who live on useful workers' sweat -- we'll stop their thieving racket yet,
And to make them earn their tucker, you bet, is the job for me and you.

With a hool-em-up and a sool-em-up,
And there'll be no more decoys;
Then a-hunting, hunting we will go
For the Sydney market boys.

Subject: RE: Lyr - Cosgrove
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 06:18 PM

Tune Req: The Rabbiter's Song (Stan Wakefield) - https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=23038#253190

THE RABBIT-TRAPPER
Collected Wendy Lowenstein and Dave de Hugard. Arr. Dave de Hugard.
Collected in 1973 from Basil Cosgrove of Armidale, NSW, Australia,

Well me traps are all a-jangle and in an easy swinging tangle
And I'm setting in a circle, keeping round a fringe of trees'
And I'm muck and gory splattered, and me clobber's torn and tattered,
But I'm carefree as those bunnies, 'til they fall for one of these;
And I'm under no man's orders and I recognise no borders;
But there's a welcome everywhere for me and my old dungarees.
I am a rabbit trapper and a canny bunny snapper,
And I whistle through the bushland, like the birds up in the trees.

(Whistled reprise of B part)
While you blokes are courting tabbies, well I'm out among the rabbies;
And I can hear 'em buckin', squealin', well, a dozen traps ahead,
While you blokes at the pub are flirtin', at the last trap I am certain
To be bagging up me bunnies, keeping tally as I tread.
(Instrumental reprise of B part)
Well, come on, my old cobber, we'll put on some decent clobber
And we'll leave the bunnies hoppin', and playin' in the trees (Hup, Ginger!)
We'll make the railway early; there's a shy and dinkum girlie
And she juggles with those cream cans, while she writes cheques out for me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Australian songs about rabbits
From: GerryM
Date: 12 Jun 25 - 07:00 PM

One can go to https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=168402 "Mudcat Australia-New Zealand Songbook" and search for "rabbit" and find a few more songs which, if not entirely about those animals, at least give them a look-in.