The unionists lost the battle, but the cost to the government and the squatters was considerable. It was a wild year, but one cannot help wondering whether, despite all the bitterness that in the end, bushmen would not kill bushmen. And into all this turmoil, strode Banjo Paterson. Waltzing Matilda - Summary Waltzing Matilda, it seems, was a spontaneous composition. From my own experience, I believe that spontaneous song or lyric writing is merely the scab that forms on an under-lying sore or the cream that settles on top of the milk.
All spontaneity is the bubbling surface of deeper thoughts, or the sub-conscious surfacing freely.
I believe that Waltzing Matilda was written in this way. The 1894 Shearer s Strike could not have escaped Banjo s attention. It was of national significance. He had been in the outback collecting old bush songs. He himself had written Travelling down the Castlereagh a song expressing support for the Union Shearers.