They Go Wild (mosquitoes or the opposite sex?)

"They Go Wild" as sung at camp refers to the bothersome insects in the woods.  But in the original song, a big hit in 1917 in the early days of recorded music, "they" refers to members of the opposite sex.


Here is the camp version:

They go wild, simply wild, over me
They go wild, simply wild as they can be
Ev’ry morning noon and night
In the evening how they bite
The wood ticks, mosquitoes, and ev’ry fly in sight

Ev’ry morning on my pillowcase
A daddy longlegs stares me in the face
In my bathing suit and shoes
They assemble for a snooze
They go wild, simply wild, over me

And here are a couple of verses from the original:

They go wild, simply wild, over me
They go mad, just as foolish as can be
I meet so many kind I have to leave a few behind
They love me, they kiss me, I guess they must be blind

Every night how they fight over me
They all fall for my personality
I'm not good looking, it is true, but it's the little things I do
That make them wild, simply wild, over me

"They Go Wild" was composed by Fred Fisher with lyrics by Joe McCarthy.  Here is Billy Murray's version, the one that popularized the song:


The song has been recorded in many genres over the past century.  I haven't found the camp version anywhere, so I will leave you with this wester swing version from the 1930s, one of my favorites:

 

Waltzing Matilda photograph

If you are familiar with what is called Australia's unofficial national anthem, you will recognize these lyrics from the third verse:
Down came the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three! 
The squatter and troopers find the swagman (vagrant worker) who stole a jumbuck (a sheep), but fail to detain him because he drowns himself in a billabong (pond) rather than be captured.

Little did I know until today that a picture exists showing the troopers and the squatter:


The troopers (one, two, three!) are in the dark shirts. The fourth man from the right is the squatter (which means wealthy landowner; his jumbuck is the one that was purloined).

The words to Waltzing Matilda were written in 1895 by A. J. "Banjo" Paterson and set to music by Christina Macpherson.  Paterson was staying at the Macpherson family's sheep and cattle ranch in Queensland, where he learned of an incident four years earlier.  This inspired the song, and the photo above from the State Library of Queensland captures the men involved.

I'll leave you with this 1938 recording, which was the first hit version of "Waltzing Matilda."