<P> A lot of people now think the song is traditional . And a lot of people think that I died in the war, and penned it in blood as I expired in the bottom of a trench . I never thought the song would outlast me, but I have decided now there's no doubt it will . For how long, I have no idea . Nothing lasts forever . Hopefully it'll be sung for quite a few years down the track, especially in this country . And hopefully it will get to the stage where everyone forgets who wrote it . </P> <P> A couple of years after arriving in Australia, Bogle found himself at a Remembrance Day parade in Canberra and the song was the result of that event . The song was written in the space of two weeks . Interviewed in 2009 for The Scotsman, he said: </P> <P> I wrote it as an oblique comment on the Vietnam War which was in full swing...but while boys from Australia were dying there, people had hardly any idea where Vietnam was . Gallipoli was a lot closer to the Australian ethos--every schoolkid knew the story, so I set the song there...At first the Returned Service League and all these people didn't accept it at all; they thought it was anti-soldier, but they've come full circle now and they see it's certainly anti-war but not anti-soldier ." </P> <P> Written in 1971, the coincidence with the Vietnam War has not been missed as it rails against the romanticising of war . As the old man sits on his porch, watching the veterans march past every Anzac Day, he muses, The young people ask what are they marching for, and I ask myself the same question . </P>

June tabor and the band played waltzing matilda