Dec 192022
I’m Going Back to Yarrawonga – Australian Song

“I’m Going Back to Yarrawonga” is an Australian Song and, it is written by Neil McBeath who is a corporal in the AIF in WWI. This song is published in the year 1919.

Sung by Leonard Hubbard, I believe this old recording is the complete version.

Sheet Music
Going Back to Yarrawonga

The song I’m Going Back to Yarrawonga was made popular during World War I.

You may have heard a different version of this song. I believe this is the earliest and most original.

In the Slim Dusty versions I’ve heard, Slim just sang the chorus, not the entire song.

Yarrawonga
Yarrawonga is located at the south-western corner of Lake Mulwala in New South Wales. The lake was created when the Murray River was dammed as part of the Murray-Darling Irrigation Scheme in the late 1930’s.

Now Digger was a soldier, and he sailed across the sea
With the first Anzac Brigade,
And Digger was a soldier as brave as one could be,
And a grand old name he’s made.
From the landing at Gallipoli till the war clouds left the skies
He wandered round the Continent, a tourist in disguise,
Then after years of battling, when three parts full of lead,
The MO said, “We’ll send you home”; ’twas then old Digger said,

“I’m going back again to Yarrawonga,
In Yarrawonga I’ll linger longer,
I’m going back again to Yarrawonga,
Where the skies are always blue,
And when I’m back again in Yarrawonga
I’ll soon be stronger than old Mahonga.
You can have all your Tennessee and Caroline,
France and Belgium thrown in, take the whole lot for mine.
I’m going back again to Yarrawonga
And the land of the Kangaroo.”

Now Digger was a soldier, so he went back home again
In the good ship Majarine,
And Digger was a soldier, he couldn’t settle down,
For a dinkum Anzac he’s been.
He daily read the papers of doings at the front,
Of all the latest victories and every blooming stunt.
One day he re-enlisted, he did without doubt,
And out in France when peace had come again they heard him shout,

“I’m going back again to Yarrawonga,
In Yarrawonga I’ll linger longer,
I’m going back again to Yarrawonga,
Where the skies are always blue,
And when I’m back again in Yarrawonga
I’ll soon be stronger than old Mahonga.
You can have all your Tennessee and Caroline,
France and Belgium thrown in, take the whole lot for mine.
I’m going back again to Yarrawonga
And the land of the Kangaroo.”


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