The Gallipoli campaign was a year-long World War I military campaign that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. There, the Anzacs – the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps – were given the mission to knock Turkey out of the war. Turkish troops on the hills above the beaches fi red on the soldiers as they landed. It was slaughter on a massive scale. Pinned down by machine gun fi re under the blazing sun, disease began to spread. Over 200,000 men (among them many Irish soldiers from the Dublin and Munster Fusiliers) died of wounds and malaria before the campaign was fi nally abandoned.
‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ is a song written by Eric Bogle in 1971. He wrote it after watching his fi rst Anzac Day march in the Australian city of Canberra.
What I will learn:
the emotional
impact of refrain as a poetic technique
Before you read the lyrics of this song, you might like to look up and listen to the song ‘Waltzing Matilda’, which is a traditional Australian folk song. Go to YouTube and look up ‘Liam Clancy –
Waltzing Matilda’. After that, you might like to listen to Eric Bogle sing his song while you read the lyrics. Go to YouTube and look up ‘Eric Bogle – The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’.
REFRAIN
This song uses the technique of refrain: lines or phrases are repeated, usually at the end of each verse. In songs, this is referred to as the chorus. The eff ect is often to intensify the sadness or poignancy of the story. Refrains are also used in poetry, where a phrase, line or group of lines are repeated at intervals in the poem.
