Thomas Dale Cowan Tom Cowan

"Waltzing Matilda" is a song developed in the Australian style of poetry and folk music called a bush ballad. It has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem". The title was Australian slang for travelling on foot, by walking (waltzing) with one's belongings in a "matilda" (swag) slung over one's back, a slang expression that may have originally been repurposed from a work of light verse by Charles Godfrey Leland. The song narrates the story of a swagman (itinerant worker) boi…