2008 - Coming Soon

Hear Our Voices, We Entreat

Max Cryer

Exisle Publishing Ltd, Titirangi, Auckland, 2001

Max correctly describes his book as "the extraordinary story of New Zealand's national anthems," (plural). And it is an extraordinary journey through the mindset of 19th century New Zealand colonists as they competed to find anthems and symbols of their identity.

As well as the story of Bracken's "God Defend New Zealand," which you can read in part on this website HERE there is the history of other competing lyrics and sheet music covers dedicated to Maoriland, Zealandia, Dominion of Beauty and Sons of Motherland.

Kiri Te Kanawa's comment in the foreward is perceptive: she notes how when she was young, it was played as a mournful brass band tune. But gradually it came to be sung by New Zealanders with pride. "The song has identity - and the identity is ours."

The Singing Kiwi

Phil Garland

Willie Wag Productions 1996

Printed in Australia by a desktop publisher, with a useful spiral binding, it rounds off the collections of Neil Colquhoun and Les Cleveland with 120 more on-the-edge-of-New Zealand songs.

About 60 of these are either written by Phil himself, or are other people's rhymes Phil has put a tune to. It is solid evidence of Phil's lifetime of effort collecting, singing, writing and recording folksongs. In most of these songs you hear the voices of sailors, gold-miners, swaggers and high-country shepherds, isolated men on the edge of their world.

These songs are best experienced at a bush-band dance, while you are stomping around a back-country hall and singing along to lively bush-dance songs like Wool Away Jack, and The Wool Commandeer. Then, while you are slumped exhausted on the plank-seating, a massive, bearded singer with a 12 string guitar regales you with a stirring rendition of The Stable Lad, Farewell to Geraldine, or Smoko! Spello!.

The Great New Zealand Songbook

Les Cleveland

Godwit Press 1991

Very nicely produced in the style of Song of a Young Country and contains several songs from that earlier songbook. Lyrics, melody, guitar chords, lots of documentary photographs and scholarly notes.

Les Cleveland (bushman, soldier, balladeer, photographer, university lecturer) has special knowledge of World War II army songs, and post-war tramping songs: I love his inclusion of the poignant Rolling Wheels and Dear Mr Fraser, and the boisterous No Boots, and No More Double-Bunking.

But can a book that omits the Chesdale Cheese Song really claim to be the great New Zealand songbook?

Read more about Cleveland and his work with folksong and other popular NZ artforms in " Les Cleveland: Six Decades" (Victoria University Press 1998)

The Metsers Songbook

Paul Metsers

Publisher unknown 1987

Paul brought out this book after leaving NZ and working as a professional folk singer in the UK for several years. The book, complete with melodies, lyrics, chords, illustrations and photographs, contains about 50 of his songs, including the NZ folk standards Farewell To The Gold, The Seal Children and The Swag and the Shiner.

For those who revel in such guitar tunings as DADGAD or CGCGCD, or finely crafted songs with ecological spirituality, this should be a goldmine.

For copies of the songbook, or just to send Paul cheery NZ folkie greetings, write or phone:
Mint Cottage, Gilthwaiterigg lane, Kendal, Cumbria (Lakes District)
LA9 6NT, United Kingdom. Phone 44 (0) 1538 724707.

A Homestead in New Zealand

Kiwi Pacific, 1987

It describes itself as "The music of the settlers and pioneers from the early days to today." It is notable for including a song writen and sung by Barry Crump, "A Dog Called Blue. A useful little booklet of words, chords, and music of a dozen songs, plus tourist information, included with a cassette issued by Kiwi Pacific

NZ Folk Foundation

Cityfolk Music Company 1981

A selection of songs from the NZFF's 1981 folk songwriting competition. Lyrics, melody and guitar chords.

A nice little paperback with songs mainly by Paul Bond (Scrub and Blackberry), Kath Tait (Song For an Old Lady), Rudy Sunde (Seasons in the Valley), John Archer (Super-man), and Val Neimann (Flop yer Belly).

Black Billy Tea,
New Zealand Ballads

Joe Charles

Whitcoulls 1981

Joe Charles was a South Island farmer who wrote bush ballads, lively ones, telling stories which create vivid pictures in your head. This is is happy book to read, and to hum along to. It is beautifully produced, with lots of illustrations, and notes about the origin of his songs.

And a challenge to musicians! You must put your own tunes to most of the lyrics. There are no melody lines or chord sequences, and few recordings available. (McKenzie and his dog, Around the Coleridge run, The phosphate flyers, Black billy tea on Les Cleveland's 1950s 45 record - Wool away Jack on Phil Garland's 1975 LP - Wool away Jack, Billy on the boil on Graeme Wilson's 1982 LP - Billy on the Boil on Cats Been Spayed's 1993 CD - Black billy blues on Phil Garland's 2001 CD)

But no worries; each song has its own unique rhyme and rhythm, perfectly suited to the content of the ballad. The tunes practically jump out at you as you read the words.

Song of a Young Country,
New Zealand Folksongs

Neil Colquhoun

AH & AW Reed Ltd 1972

Beautifully produced. Lyrics, melody, guitar chords, and notes for 50 songs, mostly old 19th century ballads.

It sings of whalers and sealers (including the much-recorded Davy Lowston ), settlers, gumdiggers, gold prospectors and rogues. In the early 20th century we meet the swaggers and rural farm workers, and it concludes with union songs.

You can listen to all the songs on a companion LP, Songs of a Young Country.

Neil Colquhoun and Roger Steele are currently preparing a revised and extended version of this book.

Shanties By The Way

Rona Bailey & Herbert Roth

Whitcombe & Tombs, Christchurch 1967

A collection of 79 songs and recitations, ranging from whaling, sealing and goldmining days to contempory ballads, with some musical arrangements and brief supporting notes.

This was a ground-breaking piece of research. A most useful book, and many of the songs in it have been repeatedly recorded. From the 19th century come David Lowston, Come all you tonguers, The New Chum, Bright fine gold, The Wakamarina, The shanty by the way, The digger's farewell, Waitakauri everytime, I've traded with the Maoris, He came from Maoriland and Shearing's coming round.

And songs written closer to 1967 have also flourished: Old Billy Kirk, The magpies, Down the Hall, By the wild Cardrona., and Down on my luck.

Tararua Song Book

Tararua Tramping Club members

TTC PO Box 1008 Wellington 1971

This notebook-sized songster has the words of about 80 of the songs that were sung by young office and factory workers when they headed away for a weekend of exercise and socializing with the opposite sex in the mountains behind Wellington. The songs tell of their adventures, both alpine and sexual.

Away, away with billy and pack, a rollicking down the mountain track,
we'll all get lost and never come back, in the Tararua Ranges.

The first forty are mostly lyrics that Tony Nolan and Harold Gretton set to well-known tunes like Rio Grande, Isle of Capri and The Workers Flag (I used to be a mountaineer, but now I sit and guzzle beer) Some of them have become classics: Good Keen Man, No More Double-Bunking, No Boots at All, Anna Hooch. A selection of these lyrics, and their tunes, are HERE

The second half of the book are singalong songs, some old, some bawdy, all with good choruses: Green grow the Rushes O, Tavern in the Town, Klondyke Kate, Home on the Range, Keyhole at the Door, Oh You Can't get to Heaven.

Others big tramping clubs in the same era produced similar songsters.

The Songs We Sang

Les Cleveland

Editorial Services Limited: Wellington 1959

Les Cleveland served with the 25th Battalion in Italy, and collected songs Kiwi soldiers were singing there. In this collection he also includes songs from North Africa collected by Jim Henderson.

Mafeesh hasheesh, I have no hubbly bubbly,
I'd love to do what all good Kiwis do,
I'd like to take you by the river, in my V8 army flivver,
My little Gyppo bint, you're kwise kateer.

Some have been borrowed from the British Army - O'Reilly's Daughter, I Don't Want to be a Soldier, My A25 etc - while others use tunes of hymns and popular songs to express the Kiwis' feelings: frustration in Trentham and Waiouru, coping with the sand and flies and German shell fire in North Africa, nostalgia in Italy, Dear Mister Fraser, won't you take us home? And songs of bitterness in Fiji, being poorly equipped there, and away from the real fighting.

Though they had no ammunition, they were chock full of ambition,
As they waited in their camps beside the sea.

Les took the best of these songs and made a couple of LPs in wartime bar-room style. Sample MP3s from these are now on a university folklore website.
The Songs we Sang LP - More Songs We Sang LP

When The Pakeha Sings of Home,
A Source Guide to the Folk & Popular Songs of New Zealand

Mike Harding

Godwit Press 1992

Mike spent several years in libraries and the Radio New Zealand record archives researching NZ songs. This book contains marvellous lists of locally made songs:- colonial songs, around-the-piano songs, wartime songs, tramping songs, and all those songs we heard on the hit parades and at parties and thought we had forgotten.

He also has them cross-indexed to other lists of all the records and songbooks where you can still find the songs. Or you can hear Mike himself; he now travels the country singing the best of these songs live.

And for the academically inclined, he also has an exhaustive bibliography of books. articles and songbooks.

Maori Music

Mervyn McLean

Auckland University Press, 1996

480 pages.

This is a study of ancient Maori musical tradition and knowledge, and an exploration of the impact of European music on this tradition. It draws on diverse written and oral sources, and includes some 1300 recorded songs, interviews with singers and numerous eyewitness accounts.

McLean went all over New Zealand with a Grundig tape recorder in the 1950s and recorded over 800 tribal songs. He seems to have spent the next 40 years analysing those tapes and building on the knowledge he gained.

There are lots of interesting anecdotes as well as musicological information. It is well illustrated with many musical examples. His description of the communal folk process that was used to craft and shape a new Maori song is especially interesting.

Mervyn McLean was until recently an associate professor of Ethnomusicology and head of the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.