Sunday, December 18, 2011

Aussie Jingle Bells - Colin Buchanan

This one is for all the Northern Hemisphere people.
As we don't have snow, sleighs or anything else that's in the original Jingle Bells song, Colin wrote some alternative lyrics for Aussies. It's sung a lot in schools at end of year concerts.




If you need translations:

Rusty Holden ute - Holden is General Motors here in Aust.
                           - ute is short for utility
Esky - ice box cooler/ice chest
Beaut - short for beautiful
Thongs - unlike the rest of the world, Australians refer to flip flops as thongs.
Swaggie - Swagman best known in Waltzing Matilda. Wikipedia - Particularly during the Depression of the 1890s and the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployed men travelled the rural areas of Australia on foot, their few meagre possessions rolled up and carried in their swag. Typically, they would seek work in farms and towns they travelled through, and in many cases the farmers, if no permanent work was available, would provide food and shelter in return for some menial task.
I have never seen a swaggie in my life and I think 99% of Australians have never seen one either.

14 comments:

  1. Lol!! That sure is a beaut song. I might just kick off my thongs and dance around like a swagman!

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  2. fun song. love the lyrics. I'd love to spend Christmas in both a hot place and a cold place. instead I'm stuck in the middle.

    thanks for sharing!

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  3. Love this version! Though it's incredably hard for me to imagine Christmas coming during the summer.

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  4. Thanks for posting that!! Reminds me of the Christmas/ New Years I spent in Melbourne in 2002!! One evening, after a couple glasses of wine, my partner and I rewrote a few Christmas songs to make them Australian! I still have them somewhere - but unaccessible right now. Love this one!!

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  5. ps I am Canadian but now spend winters in Florida. Although it is winter in Florida it feels like summer so I am now used to warm CHristmas weather. I do miss the snow, though.

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  6. What fun! Can't imagine spending Christmas in the summer though. You might be interested to know that the French also call flip flops tongs whereas to us thongs are very brief knickers (not that I have any at my age!)

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  7. LOVE it! While it's still difficult to comprehend a summery Christmas, I think I'd like it. I'm sharing the song with my kids when they awaken. It's hilarious. Happy Sunday night, Marg! ☺

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  8. Yep you gotta love the Aussie Christmas :-)

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  9. Yes! We definitely need Aussie Christmas songs don't we? All that snow and sleigh bells stuff has no relevance to us for Christmas. Although I would like to have one white Christmas and the opportunity to make a snowman.

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  10. And the boot of the car is what Americans would call the trunk. This is great, I'd never heard it before! Missing my hot summer Christmas.

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  11. We love this version in our house. Being in Brisbane we certainly relate and we are having a BBQ too. Thanks for the treat.

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  12. Love it!! I just had the kids crowding around the laptop. Have a great Christmas x

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  13. Ha HA!!!! I never knew that flip flops could be THONGS!!! Have a brilliant Christmas and keep busy stitching! Moira x

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  14. Fabulous! Thanks so much for sharing it. :-)

    In the States we called flip-flops thongs when I was a kid. Not sure when that changed...

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