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Clip description
'Wrap Me Up With My Stockwhip and Blanket’ was recorded by Tex Morton in August 1936 for Regal Zonophone at EMI Studios in Sydney. Morton sings and plays guitar on this recording of the song. The song is a reworking of a 19th century folk song, with melody by Jack O’Hagan and Australian-flavoured lyrics adapted from Banjo Paterson’s poem 'The Dying Stockman’ (1905). This clip features the final thirty seconds of the song, including the last verse and yodelled chorus.
Curator’s notes
In this clip, you can hear Tex Morton singing in the typical country and western style of the period. His accent is as much American as Australian (or New Zealander) and the guitar accompaniment is the pick and strum popularised by Mother Maybelle Carter and other American country guitarists of the time.
The song’s origins actually date back to the early 19th century. Its storyline is well known in both the British and American folk song traditions where it can variously be a soldier, sailor, cowboy or almost anyone else in a dangerous occupation dying a romantic death and asking his comrades to bury him appropriately.
The song has been Australianised with references in the clip’s verse to 'dingoes’ and the 'coolibah’. The juxtaposition of the American-style accent and playing sounds somewhat at odds with the Australian references but it is the Australian touches that make this record a pioneering effort and help account for its popularity with homegrown audiences.
Also notable about this clip is the yodelling. Yodelling remained an essential element in Australian country music right up to the late 1950s, a couple of decades after it became little more than a curiosity in American country music.
