The Enduring Popularity of “Hay and Hell and Booligal”

Banjo Paterson’s comic poem cemented the expression “Hay and Hell and Booligal” in the Australian lexicon. But the towns it referenced had mixed feelings about their newfound fame even though it humorously captured the Australian propensity for self-deprecation and still delights readers today with its enduring wit.

The phrase “Hay and Hell and Booligal” was already part of Aussie slang when Paterson penned the poem in 1896, used to refer to a miserable or hellish place. Earlier iterations described the arduous journey for drovers and teamsters crossing the remote “One Tree Plain” between the towns of Hay and Booligal in western New South Wales.

Paterson’s genius was shifting the meaning to turn “Booligal” itself into the punchline. His droll verses sarcastically promoted Booligal as an appealing small town, while the underlying irony highlighted the opposite. His overstated praise humorously enumerated the town’s many torments – sweltering heat, dust storms, snakes, swarms of flies, marauding rabbits, and relentless drought.

The speaker entices visitors by boasting of Booligal’s charms compared to the nearby larger town of Hay, where rowdy shearers caroused on payday. But his exaggerated claims only underline Booligal’s lacks – with not even an old billiard table surviving drunken damage by “careless curs.”

Paterson caps the parody by begging in prayer to be sent anywhere – even Hell – rather than be trapped in Booligal. This comedic exaggeration cemented the expression in Australian culture. Though likely never visiting himself, Paterson keenly caricatured outback parochialism.

The Ballad that Put Booligal “On the Map”

The Riverine Grazier newspaper in Hay swiftly republished the verse in 1896, likely unaware it would spark a backlash. Residents of Booligal took offense, feeling Paterson had unfairly disparaged their town. One prominent local dismissed the poet’s license to “tell lies.”

Amusingly, Booligal saw the poem’s publication as injuring the Riverine Grazier’s circulation in their area, upset at being portrayed so unflatteringly to the wider public. Locals believed Paterson lacked firsthand knowledge of their town.

Ironically, the nickname also impacted perceptions of Hay. One visiting journalist implied Banjo’s writing had prejudiced him against Hay before his actual visit, which pleasantly surprised him.

Over the years, Booligal residents maintained mixed views on Paterson’s controversial poem. In 1936, they invited the elderly poet to the debut of the Booligal War Memorial Hall, partly built through selling his autographed works. Paterson politely declined attending, joking he had put Booligal “on the map” in its youth.

When Paterson died in 1941, his obituary in the Riverine Grazier suggested the enduring phrase was just catchy rhyming rather than a serious critique of the towns. But the poem had forever connected them with Australian slang for discomfort and misery.

Though initially stung, in time the towns recognized Paterson’s ballad had brought them national notoriety. Despite ruefully highlighting their flaws, Banjo had put Hay and Booligal on the map through the power of his verse.

The enduring popularity of “Hay and Hell and Booligal” is rooted in Paterson’s humorous skewering of Aussie small town pride. By affectionately reveling in national self-mockery, the poem continues delivering laughs to new generations of readers.

Hay and Hell and Booligal

“You come and see me, boys,” he said;
“You’ll find a welcome and a bed
And whisky any time you call;
Although our township hasn’t got
The name of quite a lively spot—
You see, I live in Booligal.

“And people have an awful down
Upon the district and the town—
Which worse than hell itself they call;
In fact, the saying far and wide
Along the Riverina side
Is ‘Hay and Hell and Booligal’.

“No doubt it suits ’em very well
To say its worse than Hay or Hell,
But don’t you heed their talk at all;
Of course, there’s heat—no one denies—
And sand and dust and stacks of flies,
And rabbits, too, at Booligal.

“But such a pleasant, quiet place—
You never see a stranger’s face;
They hardly ever care to call;
The drovers mostly pass it by—
They reckon that they’d rather die
Than spend the night in Booligal.

“The big mosquitoes frighten some—
You’ll lie awake to hear ’em hum—
And snakes about the township crawl;
But shearers, when they get their cheque,
They never come along and wreck
The blessed town of Booligal.

“But down to Hay the shearers come
And fill themselves with fighting-rum,
And chase blue devils up the wall,
And fight the snaggers every day,
Until there is the deuce to pay—
There’s none of that in Booligal.

“Of course, there isn’t much to see—
The billiard-table used to be
The great attraction for us all,
Until some careless, drunken curs
Got sleeping on it in their spurs,
And ruined it, in Booligal.

“Just now there is a howling drought
That pretty near has starved us out—
It never seems to rain at all;
But, if there should come any rain,
You couldn’t cross the black-soil plain—
You’d have to stop in Booligal.”

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“We’d have to stop!” With bated breath
We prayed that both in life and death
Our fate in other lines might fall:
“Oh, send us to our just reward
In Hay or Hell, but, gracious Lord,
Deliver us from Booligal!”