The bush ballad, bush song, or bush poem is a style of poetry and folk music that depicts the life, character and scenery of the Australian bush. The typical bush ballad employs a straightforward rhyme structure to narrate a story, often one of action and adventure, and uses language that is colourful, colloquial, and idiomatically Australian. Bush ballads range in tone from humorous to melancholic, and many explore themes of Australian folklore, including bushranging, droving, droughts, floods, life on the frontier, the city-country divide, and relations between Indigenous and European Australians.

The tradition dates back to the beginnings of European settlement when colonists, mostly British and Irish, brought with them the folk music of their homelands. Many early bush poems originated in Australia's convict system, and were transmitted orally rather than in print. It evolved into a unique style over the ensuing decades, attaining widespread popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when it was thought by many Australians to convey "an authentic expression of the national spirit". Through bush poetry, publications like The Bulletin sought to define and promote mateship, egalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism and a concern for the "battler" as quintessential Australian values.

Though the style has since declined in popularity, works from the period leading up to Federation remain among the best-known and loved poems in Australia, and "bush bards" such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson are regarded as giants of Australian literature. Clubs and festivals devoted to bush poetry can be found throughout the country, and the tradition lives on in Australian country music.

The songs tell personal stories of life in the wide open country of Australia. Typical subjects include mining, raising and droving cattle, sheep shearing, wanderings, war stories, the 1891 Australian shearers' strike, class conflicts between the landless working class and the squatters (landowners), and bushrangers such as Ned Kelly, as well as love interests and more modern fare such as trucking.

Although not technically bush ballads, there are also numerous sea shanties formerly sung by whalers and other sailors, as well as songs about the voyage made by convicts and other immigrants from England to Australia, which are sung in a similar style.

While subject matter may be constant, musical styles differ between traditional and contemporary bush ballads. Exemplars of the traditional bush ballad style include Slim Dusty's When the Rain Tumbles Down in July or Leave Him in the Long yard which have strong narrative in verses plus choruses set to a Pick n' Strum beat. Contemporary bush ballads may employ finger picking and strumming rock styles.

Australia's musical traditions include the English, Scottish, and Irish folk songs of the convicts, as well as the work of pastoral poets of the 1880s. There was also a hymn singing tradition brought by missionaries in the 19th century. and the convict songs of those incarcerated on the island. They represent attempts to European cultural forms to the Australian environment.

The distinctive themes and origins of Australia's bush music can be traced to the songs sung by the convicts who were sent to Australia during the early period of the British colonisation, beginning in 1788. Early Australian ballads sing of the harsh ways of life of the epoch and of such people and events as bushrangers, swagmen, drovers, stockmen and shearers. Convict and bushranger verses often railed against government tyranny. Classic bush songs on such themes include: The Wild Colonial Boy, Click Go The Shears, The Eumeralla Shore, The Drover's Dream, The Queensland Drover, The Dying Stockman and Moreton Bay.