Though the title of the song sounds like it’s about a dance with someone named Matilda, it’s actually born of an Australian style of poetry called a “bush ballad”—slang in the country for traveling on ...

Generations of Australians have been cooed to sleep with a soft, cradle-side rendition of the ballad of a thieving bushman who drowns himself rather than being captured by the law, a song that ...

“That’s a nice song,” I said. I was shooting whiskey with rogue warriors from Australia in a makeshift bar in the dusty Vietnamese village of Phuoc Tuy. “Thanks mate! It’s our national anthem,” Capt.