The story behind the song AB. Banjo Paterson’s song Waltzing Matilda is now recognised throughout the country and the world as being more Aussie, even, than footballs, meat pies and all the rest of it. The refrain has echoed through our heads on innumerable Australian occasions and events as typifying – what? We know the words (sometimes, kind of) and can hum the tune with a finesse honed at primary school. But what we perhaps don’t all know is that Banjo’s great anthem was derived from a real Aussie lifestyle. Lance Ross has, in Banjo Paterson’s Waltzing Matilda, written the stories of the jolly swagmen and drawn their lifestyles in life-like color. While the book is a celebration of that much-loved song, it is also an intriguing and fascinating look at the people who took up the swagman “occupation” and of the circumstances that created it.