Australian girls are good enough for me

This song uses racist and misogynist language, drawing on stereotypes in a way that was commonplace at the time but is no longer acceptable today.

AKA New Zealand girls are good enough for me
Canadian are good enough for me
Dixie girls are good enough for me
Ulan girls are good enough for me
First Published 1923
Writer/composer Harry Lauder Roud RN22663

Music Hall Performers Harry Lauder
Folk performances Collected from the singing of:
Oakley, Bill; Australia; 1980s		 

From sheet music:

Australian/New Zealand girls are good enough for me
Written, composed and sung by Harry Lauder

[For "New Zealand" version, replace "Australian" for "New Zealand" throughout]

You've heard about the Yankee girls, with all their dare and dash,
And of the Frisky girls from Frisco you've been told,
The Fame of France's daughters has been wafted o'er the waters
And that English girls are worth their weight in gold,
To wander wi' a Scottish lass is just like being in Heaven,
Some love an Irish colleen on their knee,
But you just give me an Australian girl and they can have the rest,
Australian Girls are good enough for me.

For the Australian girls are good enough for me.
Oh, the Australian girls are good enough for me,
They are sweeter than the peaches on the tree,
They are just the Dinkum Dears I've been cuddlin' them for years,
Oh the Australian Girls are good enough for me.

I know there's lots of fellows very fond of foreign blood,
And rave about the Asiatic charms,
Some think there's nothing finer than to hug a girl from China,
Or hold an Abyssinian in their arms,
Some chaps are only happy when they're jinkin with a Jappy,
Or dangling a Spaniard on their knee,
They can have the blooming lot, everything can go to pot
If not Australian they're no good to me.

Now I have a sweet wee lass, she is my very own,
She simply is the sunlight of my life,
One night in the moonlight as we wandered all alone,
She promised me that she would be my wife,
Underneath the Southern Cross last night at ten to ten,
I never thought such happiness could be,
When she said she would be mine, the atmosphere became divine
I kissed her underneath a wattle tree.

[Patter]
Of course, as I say, there are beautiful girls everywhere – North, South, East, West – but there is something about this girl I'm telling you about. Well, in the first place, she's well off and her dad has a racehorse – it's running next week; it started last week. Oh, he has tons of money! But it's not his money after. I'm after something money can't buy nor make – a bonny lass!

By the 1920s Harry Lauder was regularly touring Australia, Canada, America and other parts of the English-speaking world. Most of his songs continued to reflect a romantic and/or comic vision of Scottishness. He sang a small number of songs which reflected his international appeal and this is one of them. Songs which could be adapted for any locality had been around in the Music Halls since the 1860s, and Lauder’s dubious song of praise to women of various nationalities varied only slightly from place to place. The Australian and Dixie versions are included here, see Sources below for others.

A variant was collected as a song fragment in Australia in the 1980s by John Meredith from the singing of Bill Oakley who sang the chorus of the Lauder song, substituting “Ulan” for “Australian”. Neither collector nor singer seem to have been aware of Lauder’s song.

Sources: