The bush ballad, bush song, or bush poem is a style of poetry and folk music that depicts the life, character and scenery of the Australian bush. The typical bush ballad employs a straightforward rhyme structure to narrate a story, often one of action and adventure, and uses language that is colourful, colloquial, and idiomatically Australian. Bush ballads range in tone from humorous to melancholic, and many explore themes of Australian folklore, including bushranging, droving, droughts, floods, life on the frontier, and relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Cover of Old Bush Songs (1905), Banjo Paterson's seminal collection of bush ballads
First page of "The Dying Stockman," a bush ballad published in Banjo Paterson's 1905 collection The Old Bush Songs
Adam Gordon
Henry Lawson
"The bush" is a term mostly used in the English vernacular of Australia and New Zealand where it is largely synonymous with hinterland or backwoods respectively, referring to a natural undeveloped area. The fauna and flora contained within this area may be mostly indigenous to the region, although exotic species will often also be present.
The Australian bush
Frederick McCubbin's 1889 painting Down on His Luck shows a swagman camping in the bush. McCubbin and other members of the Heidelberg School art movement depicted the bush in many of their paintings, contributing to its mythological status within Australian culture.
New Zealand's bush is variable in appearance, but generally the term connotes densely forested areas, like this one around Lake Gunn in Fiordland.
Icons of the Australian bush: bracken, corrugated iron, eucalyptus leaves, banksia, bramble, felt hat, billy, stockwhip and elastic-side boots
