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Banjo Paterson's "Waltzing Matilda"
On this day in 1864 A. B. ("Banjo") Paterson, the Australian bush poet who wrote "Waltzing Matilda," was born in New South Wales. The story of the creation of Australia's unofficial national anthem is an engaging one, a convergence of history, politics, biography, etymology and irony that unravels in all directions. In 1894 Paterson was a thirty year-old city lawyer with a distaste for both cities and the practice of law. He preferred horses, history and his outback home, and writing ballads about them. While on a visit with his fiancé to Dagworth Station (large ranches, originally run by the government on convict labor) in Queensland, Paterson was taken with a nameless tune that he heard his hostess play on the piano from memory ... FULL STORY »http://www.todayinliterature.com