Fly to Australia

Playlist

License $25

Free download

You can sing this yourself to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda'! This is a song for anyone whose roots lie a long way from home, or whose children and their families are on the other side of the world.

singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso

David Kilpatrick

Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.

I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Acoustic Folk

Charts

Peak #16

Peak in subgenre #2

Author

David Kilpatrick

Rights

David Kilpatrick

Uploaded

November 24, 2003

Track Files

MP3

MP3 6.1 MB • 128 kbps • 6:41

Story behind the song

I was walking down a passageway in the house late at night when the words 'Fly to Australia' to the tune of 'Waltzing Matilda' just came into my head. I hadn't walked another two paces before the whole concept of this song dropped into place. I sang the first three verses without even writing them, picking up a guitar which happened to be tuned in open D. The song was finished less than 30 minutes later without touching a piece of paper, and stayed that way until I recorded it (after I found that I tended to change the words a little every time I sang it). One of the first people to hear it was my friend Roger, who had just returned from visiting his two daughters in Australia - but I didn't know that. All I can say about the song is that it may be corny, it may be obvious, but people love it and I'm amazed it has never been written before. Although the tune is similar to Waltzing Matilda, it is not identical, and the chords are not the same (it is more modal in approach).

The guitar was my then-new Lowden O-12, recorded just with a mike (this is a one-take recording, using two AKG C1000S mikes, for vocal and guitar). Reverb is added to the vocal only. The tuning is DADF#AD and the basic chord shapes used are: 00000, 020120, 002102, 020020 (minor) plus 004004 in the intro instrumental.

The tune of Waltzing Matila, and anything derived from it, is not copyright despite the copyright which exists on WM (Banjo Patterson, 1896). It's a traditional English tune called the Kentish Sergeant.

Since writing, this song has been one of the most popularly requested - or suggested when we have Australian visitors to our folk club.

Lyrics

Once there was a young man working in a factory
Living with his old folks, saving all his pay
And he dreamed ("sang" is often what I sing now) as he worked from Monday through til Saturday
I'm going to fly to Australia one day

Fly to Australia, fly to Australia
I'm going to fly Australia one day
And he dreamed (etc, after the pattern of 'Waltzing Matilda')

Then he met a young girl, courted her and married her
Took her to the church on a sunny summer day
And he told her as they left for Blackpool on their honeymoon
We're going to fly to Australia one day

(Ch)

Along came the first child, then he had a brother
And pretty soon they found there was another on the way
And as he rocked the cradle, he sang to them a lullaby
You're going to fly to Australia one day

(Ch)

But time it goes swiftly, and children grow quickly
Before you even count the years they're off and on their way
One by one they left the nest, and did as he had promised them
They flew to Australia, Australia to stay

Now there sits an old man in the pub beside the factory
Sipping at his pension to while away the day
And every night he goes back home, and this is what he tells his wife
("Each night he goes home to his wife, and this is what he says to her" - revision as sung now)
We're going to fly to Australia one day

(Ch)

We've got three sons we haven't seen for a quarter of a century
Three bonny wives they met and they married on the way
We've got seven grandkids, just photos on the mantelpiece,
And we're going to fly to Australia some day!

One day an envelope will drop down through the letterbox
One day the tickets will come, so they say;
And we'll do a (the) grand tour - Darwin, Sydney, Adelaide -
For we're going to fly to Australia one day!

Fly to Australia, fly to Australia
We're going to fly to Australia some day
And we'll hold them all, and hug them all, and tell them that we love them all
Before we fly home from Australia some day!

(Repeat)

Song Likes

On 7 Playlists

Comments

Please sign up or log in to post a comment.