Westlake Girls' and Boys' high school choir's moving performance of 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda is a song written in 1971 by Scottish-born Australian singer-songwriter Eric Bogle after he saw an Anzac Day march for the first time. 

The song is considered one of the greatest Anzac songs of all time, with its lyrics describing war as futile and gruesome and criticising those who seek to glorify it. 

The song tells the account of a young drifter who enlists in the army, is sent to Gallipoli, has his legs blown off by a Turkish shell and is shipped back to Australia, where people "turned their faces away".

"I used Gallipoli rather than Vietnam because at the time, even though Australian boys were dying in Vietnam, very few Aussies could point to where it was on a map, and Gallipoli is just indelibly woven into the DNA of Australia," said Eric.

In 2019, New Zealand's Westlake Girls' and Boy's High School Choir released their incredibly powerful and moving rendition of the song, with many viewers commenting that their performance was a "wonderful rendition, gave me goose bumps."

Another viewer commented that it was, "Quite possibly the most heartfelt & thought-about rendition of this great, sad song that I have seen or heard."

You can watch their performance above!