NEW ZEALAND FOLK * SONG |
My
Dugout in the True/Matruh/Vietnam The Dying Shearer/Bushman Tune, 1871 |
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In
1871, De Little Old Log Cabin in De Lane,
a black minstral vaudeville song from Kentucky USA, had a this
verse.
From those lines came the Dying Shearer/Dying Bushman songs of New Zealand.
which
gave rise in the American West to songs about The
Little Old Sod Shanty
From the lines came the Dugout in the True / Dugout in Matruh songs of New Zealanders.
|
De
Little Old Log Cabin's vivid description of life in a
tumble-down shack struck a chord with many who had moved out to
the edges of society, and many variants of it appeared over the
next 20 years, and on
the treeless grass-covered plains of Kansas and Nebraska the
little old log cabin in the lane became "The Little Old Sod
Shanty on the Plain."
Soddies were freestanding homes made of ploughed turf and
were built on the flat loamy plains. But in drier, more
rocky, country they dug their homes out of the sides of
ravines or hills and called them dugouts. Some homes were a
combination of both methods. Utah Phillips sings of "My
little dugout soddie on the plains." American
railroad men altered the words to sing about their life in
their Little
Red Caboose Behind the Trainwhile
migrants to Newfoundland sung nostalgically of My
Little German Home Across the Sea. |
On
the treeless South Island plains of New Zealand, similar
shelters were built by poor pioneer farmers. In 1867 Lady
Barker wrote, "When a shepherd has saved a hundred
pounds, the favourite investment is in freehold land...
The next step is to build a sod hut with two rooms on
their property, thatching it with swamp grass." Station
Life in New Zealand
This version was collected in 1974, and it is probably a remnant from an older, longer shearers song that became the WW2 Matruh song. "Happy as a clan" points to the Scottish settlement of Otago.
That shearers' song was obviously the source of this song sung by New Zealand soldiers in North Africa in 1940.
And that in turn mutated into this 1960s song of a gunner in the NZ Army's 161 Battery in Vietnam.
In 1994 Kiwi Company was posted to Bosnia, and were based a Santici Camp near Vitez, 60 kilometres north-west of Sarajevo. The words of the Dugout song were absorbed into the 1940s songs " Pa Mai" and "Hoki Mai."
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This bushman seems to have been from the part of the West Coast where rimu and southern rata grows, that is, from the Taramakau River down to Haast Pass. (In other parts of the Coast there is beech forest)
The Dying Shearer "I am just a poor old shearer, I am stationed on the board" took on a complete North Island New Zealand identity, probably sometime in the 1930s.
The
Lister one-cylinder stationary engine was used to power
shearing handpieces between 1910 and 1935, before mains
electricity reached farms in the Taihape district (Central North
Island New Zealand), so this puts this song at the end of that
era. Big City Homeless in the 2020s. Once
again there are now many New Zealanders in the same situation
in our cities, with more than 20,000 in Auckland alone. I'm just a washed-up worker and I'm lying on the
street, |
Kansas 1880s |
Cleveland |
Cleveland
manuscript |
Crowl manuscript |
Colquhoun 1974 |
|
I'm
looking rather seedy now while holding down my claim And my vittles are not always served the best. And the mice play shyly round me as I nestle down to rest In my little old sod shanty in the west. |
I'm just a greasy private in the infantry I am, I've a little dugout in Matruh, And the flies crawl all around me as I nestle down to sleep, In my flea-bound, bug-bound dugout in Matruh. |
I'm
a lonely digger here |
I'm
a lonely Kiwi digger and I'm stationed at Matruh; I've got my little dug-out in the sand Where the fleas play tag around me as they circle round at night, In my flea-bound bug-bound dug-out in Matruh. |
I am
just a poor old shearer,
|
|
Oh,
the hinges are of leather |
Where
the windows are of netting and the doors of four by two And the sandbags let the howling dust storm in; I can hear that blinkin' Eytie as he circles round at night In my flea-bound,bombed-out dugout in Matruh. |
Oh
the walls are made of hessian and the windows four by two, And the doorway lets the howling sandstorm thru'. You can hear those blinkin' Ities as they circle round at night, In my flea-bound bug-bound dug-out in Matruh. |
Oh
the walls are made of hessian and the windows four by two, And the doorway lets the howling sandstorm thru'. You can hear those blinkin' Ities as they circle round at night, In my flea-bound bug-bound dug-out in Matruh. |
Oh
the walls are made of iron and the windows made of bag And the doorways let the howling rousies through |
|
Yet
I rather like the novelty of living in this way Thought my bill of fare is always rather tame But I am happy as a clam, on this land of Uncle Sam In the little old sod shanty on my claim. |
Where
the floor is littered round with Bully and Meatloaf - For marmalade and jam we never see. We're a happy little band in this bloody land of sand In my flea-bound bombed-out dug-out in Matruh. |
Now
the place is strewn all round with bully and meat loaf - Of bread and marmalade there's blinkin' few. I'm as happy as a clown in this land of heat and sand In my flea-bound bug-bound dug-out in Matruh. |
Now
the place is strewn all round with bully and meat loaf - Of bread and marmalade there's blinkin' few. I'm as happy as a clown in his land of heat and sand In my flea-bound bug-bound dug-out in Matruh. |
Oh
the place is strewn all round with sheep wool and sheep dags Of rouseabouts there are so very few But I'm happy as a clan In this land of ewes and lambs In my tick-bound, bug-bound dugout in the True. |
|
My
clothes are plred o'er with dough, I'm looking like a fright. And everything is scattered round the room. But I wouldn't give the freedom that I have out in the west. For the table of the Eastern man's old home. |
Now
there's Messerschmidts |
Oh
take me back, oh take me back To my flea bound bug bound dugout in the sand Where you can hear those blinkin' Ities as they circle round at night, In my flea bound bug bound dug-out in Matruh. |
Oh
take me back, oh take me back To my flea-bound bug-bound dug-out in Matruh. Where you can hear those blinkin' Ities as they circle round at night, In my flea-bound bug-bound dug-out in Matruh. |
||
Still
I wish that some kd-hted girl would pity on me take. And relieve me from the mess that I am in. Oh, the angel, how I'd bless her if this her home she'd make In the little old sod shanty on the plain. |
Oh
I wish I had a sheila to sit upon my knee, To relieve me of the misery that I'm in, For I'd woo her and caress her, if this her home she'd make In my flea-bound, bombed-out dug-out in Matruh. |
Now
oft times I wish I had a girl to sit upon my knee, To free me from this pain that I am in, My God how I would bless her, if she'd only sit with me In my flea bound, bombed out dugout in Matruh. |
Oft
times I wish I had a girl to sit upon my knee To relieve me of the pain that I'm in That girl how I would love her If she'd come and live with me In my tick-bound, bug-bound dugout in the True. |
Note
B. F. ("Mick") Shepherd, a World War 2 veteran of Auckland, New Zealand, commented on the line "Where the walls are made of hessian and the windows four by two." He points out that the standard size for timber framing during this period was four inches by two inches by whatever length was appropriate.
As for the dugout, it could be a comic reference, not to a slit trench or some kind of sandbagged position, but to a troops' latrine. "A dugout has no windows, nor does a latrine, but if it had them they would have a four-by-two frame. The walls would be of hessian and the doorway would let everything through."
Shepherd also dates the earliest known performance of this song in the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force as September 1940, when the force's Third Echelon landed in Egypt. They then went to Greece and Crete, and it was many months before they got to Matruh, so was probably the shearers version of the song that was sung.
Put on web - August 2007