by Bill McLain
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
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CHECKING UP ON YOUR DOCTOR
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Music
In the Australian song, what does “waltzing Matilda” mean? (Hint: it’s not a woman.)
A “matilda” is a blanket (or swag) usually carried over the shoulder and used to keep its owner warm at night. A “swagman” is an itinerant sheep shearer who wanders about the countryside looking for work. In many ways, he is similar to the American hoboes of the 1930s. Thus, when “waltzing Matilda,” the swagman is dancing with his blanket.
This haunting song tells the story of a wandering sheep shearer who is sitting beside a watering hole (“billabong”) waiting for his tea (“billy”) to boil when he sees a small sheep (“jumpbuck”), kills it, and hides it in his food bag (“tucker bag”). When the authorities arrive and want to see what he is hiding, he jumps into the watering hole, preferring to drown rather than go to prison.
In 1894 there were a series of violent sheep shearer strikes in Australia that eventually led to the breakdown of class distinctions and social privilege. The strikes gained national significance. Shearing sheds and riverboats were burned and men were shot. The song is about this era.
Amid this turmoil, Christina MacPherson wrote a catchy tune called Craigielee, and her lover, Banjo Patterson, decided to write some words to keep the tune alive. His words chronicled the fate of one sheep shearer and the song eventually became known as Waltzing Matilda.
FACTOIDS
The name “Matilda” was given to women who followed the soldiers in the European Thirty Years’ War. Because these women kept the soldiers warm at night, the term was eventually used to describe the blankets that the soldiers carried.
Sheep shearers work an 8-hour day in four 2-hour separate “runs” and are paid according to the number of sheep they shear. An average shearer can shear up to 110 sheep per day.
An excellent film about itinerant sheep shearers is The Sundowners (1961) with Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr, Peter Ustinov, and Glynnis Johns.
There are over 140 million sheep in Australia (more than in any other country in the world), with individual flocks ranging from a few hundred head to as many as 100,000 sheep or more.
Over 80 percent of all domestic sheep are Australian Merinos, grown for their heavy fleeces of fine-quality wool; the remaining sheep have at least some Merino blood.
Australia produces 32 percent of the world’s supply of raw wool, 56 percent of the world’s Merino wool, and 73 percent of apparel wool.
Why did Custer choose Garry Owen as his regimental song? (They died with their boots on.)
Garry Owen, or more properly Garryowen, was an old Irish quick-step tune popular in the 1860s. The lively beat mimics the rhythm of marching horses.
Predominately Irish regiments used Garry Owen as a drinking song. One story is that one of the 7th Cavalry Regiment soldiers was singing the song when Custer heard it and liked it.
The 7th Cavalry Regiment was formed at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1866 and Custer, then a lieutenant colonel, was put in command. In 1867, Custer adopted the tune as a regimental song and it became the 7th Cavalry’s official tune in 1881. Because of this, the 7th Cavalry became known as the Garry Owen Regiment and its troopers were called “Garry Owens.” The words were used as a regimental greeting, password, and battle cry.
Although he served in the Civil War and other campaigns, Custer is best remembered for the Battle of the Little Big Horn when he and two battalions under his command were killed by Sioux Indians. None of the 210 soldiers under his command survived. Today, the battle is known as Custer’s Last Stand.
FACTOIDS
The only survivor of Custer’s Last Stand was a horse, Comanche. Although severely wounded, he eventually recovered and was officially retired with an order that no one would ever ride him again. In later years he developed a liking for beer and the troopers often obliged. He died at age 28, was stuffed and mounted, and is still on display at the University of Kansas.
Custer was 37 years old when he died at Little Big Horn.
Telegraph operator John M. Carnahan stayed on his key for 21 hours to send the news of Custer’s defeat to the East.
Park rangers at the Little Big Horn memorial claim they have seen Custer’s ghost.
Although Native Americans were at the height of their power at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the defeat of Custer shocked and enraged America. The government poured so many troops into the area that the Native Americans were eventually forced to surrender.
The 7th Cavalry still exists and is part of the 1st Cavalry Division stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. However the 7th Cavalry now uses armored vehicles instead of horses.
DID YOU KNOW?
Because no one lived to tell what happened, the facts, strategy, and tactics of the Battle of the Little Big Horn have generated countless debates that continue to the present day.
Troops commanded by Brigadier General Alfred Terry had been sent out to locate and rout the Indians. Terry planned a two-pronged attack that would trap the Indians between his force and Custer’s 7th Cavalry. However, upon reaching the Little Big Horn River, Custer encountered Indians and abandoned the plan. Although Terry and his troops would not arrive for two days, Custer ordered the 7th Cavalry to attack.
He ordered Captain Benteen and Major Reno to lead the attack on either side of the river while he advanced northwest to surprise the Indian encampment.
Reno attacked first and, being overwhelmed by the Indians, was forced to retreat across the river, losing his tactical advantage. Benteen’s forces joined Reno and they dug in and continued to fight.
The Indians were aware of Custer’s presence and once Major Reno retreated, the main Indian force attacked Custer’s troops, killing them all in less than an hour.
Today the debate still rages. Was Custer an arrogant, ambitious soldier who sacrificed his men while trying to make a name for himself? Or was he a courageous soldier, fighting to save his men against insurmountable odds?
Unfortunately, the only person who knows for sure is General George Armstrong Custer.
What was the last song the musicians on the Titanic played? (The fall of a Titan.)
The eyewitness accounts of Titanic survivors disagree as to what the band was playing as the ship went under. Many said it was Nearer My God to Thee, while others said it was Autumn, a tune popular during that time but virtually unknown today. The producers of the most recent film probably chose Nearer My God to Thee because it is still a familiar melody.
As the ill-fated ship began to sink, the band moved to the deck and began playing in an effort to calm the passengers who were waiting to be rescued.
Although behavioral psychologists talk about how people panic during a disaster, they find it difficult to explain the reaction of the Titanic’s passengers in comparison to those of other maritime disasters. In typical panic situations, the individual completely disregards the lives of fellow passengers.
Yet the Titanic passengers reacted in the opposite way. Although everyone knew that the ship was sinking and that there were not enough lifeboats for everyone, there was little panic. In fact, many men refused to board the lifeboats until all of the women and children had been rescued first. The crew per
formed heroically before and after the ship sank. One man exchanged his life jacket for a sweater; he said that if he were about to die, he wanted to die like a gentleman.
But perhaps the most heroic action was that of a small band of musicians still playing melodious music as the ship sank beneath the waves.
FACTOIDS
If the Titanic were built today, it would cost at least $400 million.
The ship was known as the R.M.S. Titanic; “R.M.S.” stands for Royal Mail Steamer.
At 882 feet, the ship was longer than the tallest skyscraper in New York at that time.
It took over 22 tons of soap, grease, and train oil to launch the giant ship.
Christopher Columbus’s ship the Santa Maria weighed less than the Titanic’s rudder.
Although there were four funnels on the Titanic, only the first three were used. The fourth was an air ventilator.
The Titanic was the first ocean liner to have a swimming pool and gym. It also had an infirmary and associated operating room.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Titanic’s double-bottomed hull was divided into 16 watertight compartments, four of which could be flooded without affecting buoyancy. The Titanic was thought to be unsinkable.
That fateful night, seven iceberg warnings were sent to the Titanic. The last and most important was ignored because the radio room was so busy sending passengers’ messages to friends, relatives, and business associates.
Shortly before midnight on April 14, a lookout in the crow’s nest spotted an iceberg, but the warning came too late for the Titanic to avoid a collision. The iceberg sliced a 200-foot gash in the ship’s side and six of the watertight compartments began flooding.
Knowing the ship was doomed, the captain ordered an evacuation. The problem was that there were only enough lifeboats for about half of the 2,200 passengers. The radio operators sent out frantic international distress signals.
Many lifeboats were lowered when only partially full because officers thought the davits would not hold the weight of a fully loaded lifeboat. Of those lowered, only one returned to pick up passengers even though most could easily have carried more people.
More lives would have been lost except for the construction of the double hull and watertight compartments that prevented the ship from sinking immediately. The Titanic sank two hours and twenty minutes after the collision.
Many survivors saw a nearby ship that must have seen the Titanic’s signal flares but never responded to help. It was thought to have been the steamer Californian but a later investigation proved nothing.
In answer to the radio distress call, the steamer Carpathia arrived nearly two hours after the sinking and picked up the survivors.
Of the over 2,200 people on board, only slightly more than 700 survived. The brave musicians were not among them.
What makes the sound when you rub your finger along the edge of a glass? (The armonica came before the harmonica.)
A vibrating object produces waves that propagate in all directions. If the waves are at a certain frequency they are called “sound” waves. When our ears sense the waves, we hear the sound. If you rub your finger along the edge of a glass you make the glass vibrate. Although the vibration is very small it is enough to make a sound.
The unusual sound made by rubbing a wineglass is due to a sound spectrum rather than a single tone. When you rub a moist finger along the rim of a wineglass the rim vibrates where the finger touches it and then vibrates at a different cycle when the finger is moved from that point. This causes a fundamental tone as well as a number of harmonic overtones. However, most of the sound “theory” related to wineglasses is still a mystery to scientists.
The faster an object vibrates, the higher the pitch of the sound. For example, a cello has very long strings that vibrate slowly, causing a low range of tones. On the other hand, a violin has shorter strings that vibrate much faster and cause a higher range of tones.
As an experiment take an empty water glass, hit it lightly with a spoon, and listen to the sound. Now fill the glass almost full of water, hit it lightly again, and listen to the sound. You’ll note that the tone is much lower when the glass is nearly full of water.
When you hit the empty glass, you cause the entire wall of the glass to vibrate rapidly, which produces a high tone. When the glass is almost full of water, it takes the vibrations longer to get through the water so they are slower and the tone is much lower.
If you take eight glasses and fill each one with more water than the previous one, you can actually produce the eight notes of the scale (you have to experiment in order to fill each glass with the proper amount of water to get the tone you want). You can then play songs by tapping the appropriate glass to produce the notes you want to play.
FACTOIDS
Instruments made of glass existed in fourteenth-century China and in fifteenth-century Europe. In the 1700s performers created music by rubbing the rims of finely tuned wineglasses.
Benjamin Franklin invented an instrument he called the “glass armonica.” It had 35 custom-blown glass bowls fitted on a horizontal rod. Each bowl was “tuned” and so did not need to be filled with water. Because a treadle rotated the bowls, he could “play” up to ten at a time. The armonica was the first musical instrument invented by an American.
Mozart and Beethoven, among others, composed music for the glass armonica.
Around 1800, doctors claimed that listening to musical glasses was bad for the health and could cause premature births, convulsions in animals, and depression that could result in suicide. In some German states the glass armonica was banned by order of the police.
The “harmonica” was invented by Friedrich Buschmann of Berlin in 1821, 60 years after Benjamin Franklin’s invention of the armonica.
DID YOU KNOW?
Although few people have heard of it, the armonica is still alive and well.
In 1956 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Franklin Savings Bank, the Corning Glass Company, and a team of engineering students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tried to reproduce Franklin’s armonica. They failed.
However, Gerhard Finkenbeiner, a brilliant German inventor, made the first successful modern armonica in 1982. Since then he has made more than 100 glass armonicas, including one with three octaves.
In addition to the armonica, other glass instruments exist today. For over 20 years, the Glass Orchestra of Canada has been performing music on custom glass instruments that they designed and made themselves. The orchestra uses 1,000 pounds of glass instruments during its performances.
The Glass Orchestra has received rave reviews and still performs twice a year in Toronto, Canada.
It seems that glass music is not broken after all.
What gave Roger Miller the inspiration to write King of the Road? (Our country should be grateful to these “kings of the road.”)
In 1964, Roger Miller saw a road sign west of Chicago, Illinois, that read “Trailers for Sale or Rent.” After writing that as the first line, he gave up. Some time later he was in a Boise, Idaho, airport gift shop and saw a statuette of a hobo that inspired him to finish the song. People who know Roger Miller usually refer to it as “that hobo song.”
Although Roger Miller had two hits in 1964, Dang Me and Chug-a-Lug, his 1965 hit King of the Road won six Grammy Awards. The following year he had a variety show on NBC. He also became part owner of a Nashville, Tennessee, hotel aptly named King of the Road.
In his early career, Roger Miller wrote songs performed by stars such as Ray Price, Faron Young, Porter Wagoner, and Johnny Paycheck. These songs included Invitation to the Blues, Haifa Mind, Billy Bayou, and Home.
Although his recording career slowed down after 1967, in 1973 he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. During the 1980s he won a Tony Award for writing the score to the Broadway musical Big River (based on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn), was the voice of the rooster in Walt Disney’s animated film Robin Hood,
recorded Old Friends with Ray Price and Willie Nelson, and in 1987 won the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music.
Roger Miller died in 1992 from a tumor under his vocal cords. He was just 56 years old. Three years later he was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Roger Miller always had a great sense of humor. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, “I just don’t want to be forgotten.”
He probably never will be forgotten.
FACTOIDS
Roger Miller once remarked that his hometown of Erick, Oklahoma, was so small that the city limit signs were back-to-back. When asked the location of the home he grew up in, Roger Miller replied, “It’s close to extinction.”
While in grade school, Roger Miller picked cotton on the weekends so he could earn enough money to buy a guitar. After quitting school in the eighth grade, he herded cattle and rode bulls in rodeos.
After reading a letter from former Yale professor Rocco Landesman asking him to write the musical score for Big River, Roger Miller told his wife, “He made me an offer I couldn’t understand.”
DID YOU KNOW?
A hobo is not a tramp or a bum. The saying goes that “a hobo is a man who travels to find work, a tramp is a man who travels but refuses to work, and a bum is a man who won’t travel and won’t work.” Just look at this list of people who at one time were hoboes: Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Michener, attorney Melvin Belli, and, of course, Roger Miller.
