#7: Dropping Pebbles
Episode Description
Songs serve many purposes and have an extraordinary power to unite us. But what about the way songs can divide us? How do we use music to document history and either conceal or tell the truth about our experiences? Songs are vital tools to refresh our collective memory and can tell us about how things were long after that time has passed.
In this episode we take a deeper look at the utility of song and focus on its importance in First Nations cultures in Australia.
In this episode
Guests: Kutcha Edwards and Jessie Lloyd
Intro Theme: First Kiss Goodnight - “Story One”
Music Credits: Kutcha Edwards - “Blind Joe’s Creek” and “Scars”; Joe Geia - “Yil Lull”; The Mission Songs Project- “The Irex”, “Outcast Half Caste”, “Middle Camp”, “Down In the Kitchen (Reprise)” and “Now Is The Hour Medley”
This episode was made in collaboration with Kutcha Edwards and Jessie Lloyd. All Ears is produced and presented by Annaliese Redlich, with mentorship and editorial support from Beth Atkinson-Quinton and the Broadwave team.
Get in touch
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Annaliese Redlich: Hey, it’s Annaliese and this is All Ears.
Songs are escapism, songs are vehicles for our ambition and projection. Songs help us to feel like we are not alone, like somebody else gets it even if we can’t quite express how we’re feeling. And of course songs unite us. I can’t tell you how many connections I’ve made in a night of karaoke, or walking down the street in band t-shirt. And we looked at this earlier in the series with footy club songs in episode 2.
But what about the way songs can divide? How do we use music to document history and either conceal or tell truth about our experiences? Songs are vital tools to refresh our collective memory, or tell us about how things once were long after that time has passed. They also legitimise and elevate human experiences to a level of importance. Genres like blues, country and folk music are built on this.
And so we start this episode looking at another song… one that’s meant to speak for a lot of people. Like an ENTIRE country…
Kutcha Edwards: National anthems are about a collective thought, a oneness for the people that those national anthems are penned about.
Music: Kutcha Edwards - Blind Joe’s Creek
AR: This is Kutcha Edwards a song man revered for his work with groups like The Black Arm Band amongst many others and his solo work - this song Blind Joe’s Creek is from his album Blak & Blu. He was born on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River at Balranald in New South Wales. He was born on his country and is a proud Mutti Mutti Man. Kutcha is among many of the Stolen Generations. In fact Kutcha named his debut solo album Cooinda. It was the name of the children’s home he was forced to live in after the government took him from his parents.
In this episode we take a deeper look at the utility of song and focus on its importance in First Nations cultures in Australia.
Right now we’re outside at the Aboriginal Advancement League, as you’ll hear it’s next to a busy train line and building site in Thornbury, a suburb of Melbourne.
KE: Thornbury Train Station, by the way, did the trains not only trains and automobiles. This is every every damn crazy rally. It doesn't matter which way we turn.
When a national anthem doesn't sing about first Australians sing about Kutcha Edwards as a Mutti Mutti person. When Kutcha Edwards was born? Prior to the referendum in 1967, Kutcha Edwards wasn't born an Australian citizen. So how does that song represent me? How does that song represent Mary Edwards, my mum? How does that song represent Nugget Edwards, my father or his mum or his descendants? So you look at a national anthem such as the Australian National Anthem, and there's not one mention of the first peoples of. Of our existence, our connection to this place, A National Anthem is supposed to encompass everyone, not just the privileged
AR: Back in the late 90s, Australia was like the rest of the world, bracing for the millennium bug, gearing up for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and the reconciliation movement was highly charged with marches around the country and 250,000 people walking across the Sydney harbour bridge in what was called The People’s Walk For Reconciliation.
And Kutcha Edwards found himself at one of those moments in life when worlds collide.
It came in the form of an unexpected phone call…from Judith Durham…of the seekers. He’d recorded a song called Yil Lull as part of The Singers For The Red Black And Gold. They were an all star group featuring icons of Australian music of the time -Paul Kelly, Renee Geyer, Tiddas, Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter and Judith Durham. Anyway, Judith wants him to sing the Australian national anthem with her at a concert.
KE: Judith, can I tell you something? I said, ah, I remember when I was in the children's home in Burwood. I would have been about five or six. And every weekend there'd be people who would come and take you on rides to the country. And I think what what was happening is prospecting adoptive parents, that’s what used to happen. And I remember listening in the wireless on the radio in the car, (sings) "rock and roll and riding, out along the bay, all bound for morning town many miles away". The Seekers. I remember it as if it was yesterday. And here I am talking to Judith Durham.
AR: On the one hand he’s thrilled to be talking to one of his childhood idols on the phone, and that she wants to work with him again, but not about what she was asking him to do.
KE: I said Judith, with all due respect, my dear, I can't sing that song. Sorry, it's your national anthem, not mine. So we're on the phone for a good, you know, for around, two hours. And we left it at that.
AR: About a year and a half later, she calls back, - she’s been thinking. She wants to know if they can work on an anthem that includes this country’s First Nation’s people and another lengthy conversation ensues….which has a real impact on Kutcha
KE: So I sat up till about five, six o'clock that morning after that conversation, so my brain, my spirit mind is just working overtime. And I emailed her what I thought would be suffice if I was to ever sing that song. And she moulded it all together. She cut and pasted and she came up Judith Durham's Advance Australia Fair and then sent it to me. And I said, yep, that's close to what I'm feeling.
Australians let us stand as one upon this sacred land. A new day dawns we're moving on to trust and understand. Combine our ancient histories and cultures everywhere, to bond together for all time. Advance Australia Fair. And when this special land of ours is in our children's care from shore to shore forevermore Advance Australia Fair with joyful hearts and let us sing Advance Australia Fair.
AR: Kutcha goes on tour in regional victoria and he is singing this song to an audience of school students. He’s into the second verse and notices a woman stand up and assumes that it’s for all the wrong reasons and that she’s leaving. But she doesn’t leave. And then others stand- adults and kids
KE: I'm thinking, holy sheep shit, the whole school's at attention. And that's what that was, and that's what was envisaged in writing what we wrote.
That's what you live in, you live in hope that that something might resonate not just for Aborigines, but for Australians as a whole. And I couldn't finish, I couldn't finish the song. I was I was gone. My spirit. Yeah. I sat back and I was in...yeah and I was gone. I sat back and I thought, that's what it's about. Non Aboriginal people understand. Imagine if their families had been treated in the way that my family has, not just me, but my people, my country.
AR: Kutcha’s descendants, the Muthi Muthi people are the southern caretakers of Lake Mungo in south eastern New South Wales. This where some of the most important human remains ever found in Australia were discovered and they are called Mungo Woman and Mungo Man. In fact they are the oldest known human remains found outside of Africa, dating back around 60,000 years. Prior to this discovery, scientists thought that humans had been on this continent for a few thousand years, this was clear proof that that was incorrect. Mungo Woman and Mungo man are Kutcha’s ancestors.
KE: The thing is, Aborigines, we can't we can't go to Ancestry.com because ancestry.com wouldn't go beyond 250 years. So who will we connect it to? Who do we belong to? And it's all in our Dreaming. It's not in not in not what's on a on a document in a computer. And so the balance of what is in your intellect compared to what is in your spirit, in your knowingness of who you're connected to is way beyond intellect. It’s about, about it is about ancestry, millennia. Try and stick that in your, the IPAD upstairs do you know what I mean?
When you walked on to a certain area, you would “ahhhh ahh yeah”, you would have to sing to the country and ask for permission by the ancestors. Am I allowed to walk there? But in this sense, I'm coming. But am I allowed to come here? And that's the way that the law in the world was and still is to this day. the songs spoke of the actual structure of law. You would have to have known the song line to walk anywhere here on this place and no why metaphorically, why the kangaroo will only hop around that side of the tree, not the left side or whatever. And understand why the goanna does, what it does when it does it.
KE: Kutcha was denied this rightful connection to his culture when he was forcibly taken away from his family as just 18 months old. He was one of 12 children born to Nugget and Mary Edwards in 1965. Kutcha, along with 5 of his siblings, were removed from the family home in Balranald. Kutcha's earliest memory is of being alone in his cot in a dark room; frightened and distressed. He was later moved to Orana Methodist Children’s Home where he was reunited with his older sisters and brothers. They were kids themselves but Kutcha’s siblings worked hard to protect and nurture him within the institutional environment.
Nugget and Mary’s marriage broke down due to the pain of losing their children, and Mary moved to Gippsland. A cousin of Kutcha’s had managed to trace records of the kids whereabouts through the Department Of Aboriginal Affairs and The Department of Human Services and contacted Mary Edwards. Kutcha was 6 years old when he and his siblings got a message that they had a visitor at the Orana Children’s home. It was his mum… he didn’t recognise her so he was hiding behind his brothers and sisters. They had 3 hours together and then it took another 7 years after that visit, before Mary Edwards was granted permission to have the 3 youngest of her stolen children back, and Kutcha was one of them.
As adults they became close again and she was with him when he was awarded the National Indigenous Persons Award as part of NAIDOC week in 2001. Having her with him at the ceremony is a really precious memory for Kutcha.
KE: And then as a young fellow, you grow up and you feel like each day you take as it comes and you live and you you wake up. You go have your shower. You put your clothes on. You go to school. You attend school. There, you’re are a statistic. You come home and life is what it is. But meanwhile, you don't understand the systemic racism that permeates through an Aboriginal person's existence.
AR: Kutcha has found inspiration in Elders like Aunty Alma Thorpe who founded the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service and Jock Austin who established the Fitzroy Stars Aboriginal Youth Club Gym. They were Elders who looked beyond themselves and tried to improve life for their people. Kutcha lives by a philosophy that it is his responsibility to try and make a difference for others and his music creates connections across cultures, generations and spaces. One of the projects he’s involved in is as a long term producer for Beyond The Bars, a prison radio show featuring the stories, poems, songs and opinions of Indigenous men and women in the Victorian prison system.
KE: And that's why I do what I do in regards to, you know, Beyond the Bars. And we are the most in prison people per capita in the world. Aboriginal people here in this country and too many times have been told to shut up and sit in the corner.
The pebble has been dropped for me and I won't budge from that. I won't and I don't. And so, yeah. And it all intertwines. So all everything intertwines into my responsibility, not for me, my responsibilities for 50 generations from now, because there's only been probably six or seven generations since 1788. So it's hard to project all that distance. Down the timeline.
Music: The Mission Songs Project - The Irex
AR: Music stores our memory and is an avenue for truth. Over time, truth is often lost or buried. This is Jessie Lloyd and she is singing about a ship called the Irex, that her Grandmother Alma Coutts was sent to Palm Island on in 1925 at 6 years old. Alma was taken by force along with her baby sister and brother by police horsemen just outside of Cooktown in Far North Queensland and the traditional lands of the Guugu Yimithirr people. Jessie is shining a light on music that tells the story of her own family and of the many stolen generations, removed from their lands and families and sent to the Aboriginal christian missions.
Jessie Lloyd: Just day to day life songs they used to sing, you know, when they were social events or family gatherings. Well, just, you know, just sharing their experiences on on on what they were thinking and feeling at the time. And it's such a a rare insight because a lot of the material and resources we have from the mission days are not indigenous perspective. You know, you read the history books and it's written by a non-indigenous person about what was happening on the missions and why. But very rarely you hear it from the horse's mouth. And these songs have those first hand accounts.
My name Is Jessie Lloyd - I’m an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musician from North Queensland. My family come from Palm Island and I’m currently working on mission songs project. Mission songs project is an initiative to research and revive the early contemporary fol songs from the Aboriginal missions and settlements across Australia from about the early to mid 20th century..
Yeah, I feel like music is the... the medium or the tool that I used to not only represent my community, but also contribute and progress the community. I feel like it's a really valuable tool to do what I can to to make things better. Music is a very powerful way to create change and to create healing and create connections. And I want to use that to contribute to my own indigenous community .
AR: Music is very much in Jessie’s blood and more specifically protest music. Her grandfather was a multi-instrumentalist and was the conductor of the Palm Island Brass Band in the 40s and 50s. Very early on he was writing music about land rights, and in 1957 there was an incident on Palm Island which resulted in the family being exiled
JL: My grandfather, his name was Albie Geia, and six other men lead a strike against the Queensland government and the superintendent who was managing Palm Island Aboriginal settlement. And I think, you know, that was quite a significant event. And then later on, he would go to in the 60s. Write It write a song about about, you know, independence and freedom and sovereignty, which is quite early in terms of the protest movement and land rights. It wouldn't be until my father's generation that it would be an actual movement in the Indigenous community.
But my dad, his name's Joe Geia. He's a very well-known Aboriginal musician from the 80s and 90s. With bands like Warumpi Band. He was in No Fixed Address, Coloured Stone, all that kind of pre-Yothu Yindi days, sort of when the protest movements were coming.
AR: Music was ever present in Jessie’s house growing up. She has memories of amps and guitars and practices, and people her dad toured with hanging out, like Mandawuy Yunupingu from Yothu Yindi or Christine Anu.
Music: Joe Geia - Yil Lul
AR: In fact Jessie’s dad Joe Geia wrote this song, Yil Lull, that was responsible for Kutcha Edwards meeting Judith Durham - when The singers for the red black and gold recorded their version of it. Yil Lull means “Sing” in Guugu Yimithirr language and it’s a really important song, one that is regularly described as an Aboriginal anthem.
Jessie’s latest work, The Mission Songs Project has uncovered important songs that document everyday life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were sent to missions under the Assimilation policy. These songs share the day to day realities of separation, struggle and survival and were sometimes set to hymns or popular tunes of the day. And on top of the importance of documenting them permanently for current and future generations, singing these songs now, creates an important opportunity
JL: I feel like, first of all, it gives Australians an opportunity to understand their past and to understand ourselves. And that's something that isn't really understood yet when they understand what happened and why. From both sides of the coin, that gives an opportunity for healing and connection, because a lot of people don't understand why Indigenous Australians are so unhappy and disadvantaged and therefore oppressed. And sometimes this is simply as easy as just sharing their side of the story. And so somebody goes “ah,I didn't know”. maybe this is my next big project I don;t know, but I feel like this country needs to have a big family meeting and go, well, you know, back in the day, this is what happened. So once I did this to that end and we can talk about it in a safe place and in a safe way so we can all share and feel like we will have a voice. These old mission songs, I feel like give these all people their chance to put their voice forward because they never would have had a chance before.
AR: But what is it about a song that connects us outside of our time, place and experience so well with others?
JL: Yeah. Well, I think when people shared their stories through song, it's an invitation for other people to join in and not only join in, but to relate. You know, there's a lot of these old songs on the Mission Days about saying farewell to their loved ones. And these are the kids that have been taken for the Stolen Generation. You know? But here, a song that the parents sang. They weren't saying Stolen Generation. They were just simply wishing them well and hoping to see them again. And that's something that any human can relate to with loss. And seeing a loved one go. And it's that human experience that um, that music doesn't take sides with. So I think, you know, sharing these songs is a great way for people to have more understanding.
AR: The missions era is largely thought to have been from Australia’s federation in 1901 till the Australian referendum on Aboriginal rights in 1967, but the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were shamefully governed by colonising forces long before federation and the fallout is still being felt today. The Assimilation policy, which was only formally abolished in 1973, governed the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander People, resulting in the forced removal of children from their families and placement in children’s homes, christian missions, on reservations or other state sanctioned institutions. I mentioned that Kutcha Edwards and Alma Coutts Jessie’s Grandma were members of the Stolen Generations, that’s the name given to these children who were taken from their families.
Jessie’s research into the missions era details... that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people endured forced removal from their traditional lands, the forced removal of children from their families and restrictions against practicing traditional cultures and languages. The aim was to end traditional social structures and connections to country. And as a result, cultural knowledge and practices were vilified, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people suffered institutionalised oppression, violence and disadvantage.
It also meant that people from different clans, nations and language groups were placed together in the same institutions, often away from their country.
JL: What happened when people were mixed, like a lot of the times, you know, there might have been warring tribes or there might have been wrong skin, you know, you know, supposed to look at that person or you're not supposed to go near that. But they had they had to line up together in the dormitories. A lot of the times the cultural traditional songs and stuff were completely stripped. Especially with the kids that we loved took the language. But another thing that happened sometimes, too, is that the blackfellas they tricked missionaries and they sing this language song, I can't remember. I'll sing it for you now quickly it goes ( sings) Barra-wanda, the NA you go wild and bah bah. I wonder you will do something like that. And the English translation is (sings) He sends the rainbow, the lovely rainbow who sends the rainbow with the rain anyway...This is out back of Bourke and kids used to sing this song and the missionaries said you can't sing that song. And they said nah nah, it’s about Jesus but about the Rainbow Serpent. And the mission is like, oh, yeah let em go. So you know little sneaky things like that would happen, but generally complete severing of that traditional culture.
AR: The missions songs project has seen Jessie travelling far and wide across Australia to sing, and one of these visits took her to Moree in Northwest New South Wales with fellow musician Emma Donovan. Like Jessie, Emma also hails from a very musical family. And when they perform, they aren’t just representing themselves, but their whole family!,
JL: And so both her and I, when we practice, it's very much a cultural thing because we’re representing our families when we go out. So we're in Moree and we did this community concert and there's all these all girls are at the back, arms crossed, watching us singing, you know, and look and sussing us out the kid who these girls are. And we come to the end of the show and they would just sort of eyeballing and come to the point where we're going to sing a song for Moree, which is, you know, their own song. And they were watching. And the show could've gone two ways. They could have been really offended and kicked us out of town or it could've gone really well. And luckily for us, it went really well. They got real happy and they made us sing the song three times in a row and they pulled out the spoons and they started dancing. And it was they were really happy to hear. The old song from the Moree settlement is called Middle Camp.
Music: The Mission Songs Project - Middle Camp
JL: A lot of them were all ladies were born there. It’s shut down now. And they hadn't heard that song for ages. When Emma and I travel, you know, we'd representing our families and it's more of a cultural protocol for us to to go in. Whereas if sometimes if a non-Indigenous person goes in as an academic and wants to take somebody’s cultural knowledge and put it in the thesis and then put it on the shelf, it's not received as well. For us, it was really exciting. And that's that's the level of the magic that happens on the road with communities and the power of a song.
AR: Apparently after this happened, the elders of Moree were so happy with this song, that they now use a recorded version at their funerals. They are also talking with the local council about cleaning up Middle camp and creating a memorial there. They are proud of where they grew up and want to celebrate it as a community.
JL: And so there's one little simple song can have a big impact on a community.
I think it creates an emotional connection. I think there’s something, you know, in a melody and there's something in a lyric that can, you know, touch people in a way that black and white on paper may not do. I think there's magic to music? We all love music and we all fall in love with it. And it makes us feel certain things. To be able to share and express through this sort of like, unseen thing. That's the power of music, you know. It's not many other things can do.
KE: Music for me is my healing, holistic healing. I've performed the dream time at the G (MGCG) twice and on both occasions it's not about the 80000 people in attendance today. They're to watch Essendon play Richmond. For me, it was about the 300 Aboriginal kids. That stood around the boundary line. And when I'd walk up onto the MCG from the, you know, the bowels, you know, underneath the clubrooms. Walking up on to the grass and you walk up and you get closer and closer to the stage and all these Aboriginal kids "UNCLE KUTCHA" and their thumbs up and "DEADLY, my Uncle Kutcha, love you". And to me, that's what it's about. What's happening is they're connecting themself to you. And they're proud of what you're doing. And they're hoping and dreaming. I can't speak from a day dreaming that one day they get the opportunity to sing their song line about their existence on this place. And if they go on to be singers that they get to do what Uncle Kutcha did. And you’ll have little Aboriginal boys and girls now who can go on to play in the AFL, it’s about this circle of life, It’s the dropping of the pebbles, in the imaginary pond.to create a ripple that is not about the individual. It’s about the existence of us as people connected to our clans and our tribes and not being scared to proclaim that.
Music: The Mission Songs Project - Middle Camp
JL: You know, these kind of stories and songs is totally not about me. And the cool thing embedding, including the indigenous singers, is that every single one of them has a family connection to a mission or to a song or through their grandparents, you know. And it just enriches the story. You know, there's a song and the Mission Songs project that was written by Emma Donovan's grandfather. I was, um, looking through some old songs and I seen the name Micko and Eileen Donovan and I rang up Emma said, “Emma, who's on Eileen Donovan?” She's like, “Oh, that's my grandparents.” “I'm like, Sis, I'll send you this email. There's this old song here from recording, you know, and they passed away decades ago. And that was a big moment for her and her family to hear them all people's voices again, you know, and just sort of Spock, you know, for the family. And. And so now we've been travelling, singing that song. It's called Outcaste Half Caste. And it's especially special when Emma gets up and sings it. She's not singing for herself. She's representing a family. And that song represents all all the you know, the people who were sent to missions for being mixed race.
KE: Everybody has has the right to tell their story. There's someone there, their existence on this place and not be told that their their voice doesn't count. All our voices count, not just the loud, loudest ones, you know. A six month old. You know, she lives in a house in reservoir with with her parents. And along comes the seventh month, she passes away. And that little voice is no longer heard. That old nana who's hitting 94 and she wants justice can talk about when she was at school and in her dealings and interactions with the red necks that lived in her in her township. But if you recorded it on an iPhone, the advent of technology, you can just sit there and record your conversations with with your children.
AR: Technology now offers a unique tool for people who have been oppressed to reclaim their own narrative and dispel those imposed upon them. It offers a future where there is a real possibility for a democratisation of history telling and keeping.
JL: Music, I think has a way of transcending time and space. And if you singing old people's songs, it's like, you know, it's like you sitting there next to him sometimes, even though they're long gone. And singing these old mission songs is a way to explore that same spiritual side.
I used to be go to church and on and I don't anymore. So I'm quite sceptical about what spirituality is. But I do know for a fact that with music that there is a spirit, spiritual side, that it exists and music has the ability to kind of explore that or to delve in it. And if you go to a church and you listen to the hymns and you kind of feel it there, or if you go to other cultures and other religions and when they sing, there's a sort of traditional chanting. It takes you places that you never been before.
Music: Kutcha Edwards - Scars
AR: When I first introduced Kutcha Edwards I described him not as a musician or a song writer, but as a song man. This choice of words is important because it marks a distinction. Kutcha has a profound sense of all those that have come before him and his voice channels the spirit and strength of his family, country and his inheritance of a culture that stretches back more than 60,000 years.
KE: I believe that I’m a 60,000 year old spirit walking this earth in a 54 year old vehicle
Songwriting is again, suggesting that songwriting is is Controlled by my intellect. Why is that paragraph or why is that verse, the verse, that verse? The reality for me is that I that I am not the songwriter of that verse. I am just the conduit for. There's a difference. And I believe I believe that every song that has ever been, in a sense, penned by me comes to me in all my languages. Is transposed into the common language that I speak, which is English, which is a foreign language to me, which is a foreign language to this place. But I believe we also have a saying, just because I penned the song yesterday doesn't make it a day out. I believe that all my songs. Millennium. Sixty thousand to one hundred tale. And it's only non-indigenous people that are trying to suggest that Aborigines have only been here for eighty thousand years.
AR: And back to that song that we talked about at the start of this episode, the one Kutcha wrote with Judith Durham -Judith Durham’s advance Australia Fair…well the whole project raises complicated feelings for Kutcha for many reasons…
KE: I don't agree with the Constitution as it stands. So I, I would not be in agreement to...for due to Durham's Advance Australia fair to become the new national anthem if it were ever, to be muted. I would say not interested. I don't agree with the terms of engagement or the terms of agreement of that constitution.
It's complex. You do what you do because you're asked to do. And I was asked of my opinion. I gave my opinion to Judith. And I gave gave my whole...I handed over not my knowledge, but my spirit to that process. But then once you figure out in your own intellect or in your own spirit.
And in a sense, and I don't want to be disrespectful, but it's called Judith Durham's Advance Australia Fair. And to me, a even that's a misdemeanour to label it Judith Durham's...and that's nothing against her, that's just the publicity engine that happens.
AR: Ah yes the music publicity engine. In contemporary western society you could be forgiven for thinking that music and the “business of music” are one and the same thing.
Much of the narrative about music; what’s important to us, what gets our attention, is driven by the music industry. The focus is on units for sale, professional makers, publishers and producers. The cult of the individual. And that’s all important, but it is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg. If this is all we focus on, we completely miss out on how music in all its forms has helped us to connect and communicate for the whole of human history.
For many First Nations cultures, the world over, oral storytelling traditions are paramount. The dominant history documented in books and taught in schools has been written by colonisers and not by communities themselves.
Songs provide a vital insight, context and depth into life, culture, tradition and lore for many First Nations Cultures.
KE: The reality is that I've been at it for 30 years and not one record company has ever come to sit with me. And I don't want to. I'm in it to educate the uneducated. Come and have the conversation with the Aborigine, with Kutcha Edwards, and you get to know him
I say it all the time and creating the ripple. And come and have a conversation with me. You'll get to know me and my family beyond me. You know, that's the key to it all.
JL: The challenge is patience, these songs that are over 100 years old, I need to learn patience. But then you got, you know, more music industry hurdles, which is, you know, which really seem small fry in the scale of how all these songs are and all the people connected and the potential that these songs can contribute to, you know, at our cultural identity as a nation.
Music: The Mission Songs Project, Alma Geia - Down In the Kitchen (reprise)
AR: This is Jessie’s grandmother Alma Geia singing Down In the Kitchen - on the Mission Songs Project Album - The Songs Back Home
JL: ...what I found with the Mission Songs project is there has been a continuation of song traditions. We just sing in English and on Western instruments. But the original purpose remains of song still being passed down from generation to generation. The songs that are written and being sung have cultural, social and environmental factors and change and knowledge. You know the song ‘Outcaste Half Caste’ by Emma Donovan's Grandparents is more relevant to us nowadays, even though it was written in the 50s, you know, than a traditional song about walking in the bush. But that's the whole purpose of song cycles and song traditions. I think indigenous people still manage to practice cultural traditions just in English and on western instruments.
KE: You would sing a traditional song in a in a cultured melody, not a guitar. And that's where that's where Yothu Yindi were so unique in the fact that they were singing old songs to contemporary melody. the new instruments- Guitar, keyboard, drums. And they were singing old traditional songs against new contemporary melodies, and they were moulding the two worlds. And so you need to understand you need to understand that it's not just about the here and now. And the thing for me is that the advent of technology and putting it on a CD or putting it on an mp3 and storing it in a computer. My songs will live on way, way before. And that's that's the that's the amazing thing with with technology now is my songs will live on way be why after I enter that dreaming.
So the song is very important. The song explains who we are without having to sit there and articulate it in this weird language called English.
I just want my grandchildren, for all of the grandchildren that call me pop is too is that when I'm not here, I'll still be here in song. Still singing on country for country, about country and about them as my family.
And that's the that's the key to it all, is is not my presence, not my physical presence, but my spirit that that they feel that they know that they understand because they'll look at "oh there's pop" in the iPhone. There's nothing better than that, because the reality is that I never had the opportunity to sit with my nannas and my pops, you know, being taken away from them. But when I go to that place of my dreaming, when I close my eyes at night and I dream not in a not in a dream dreamland state while I'm asleep, but when I'm...when my spirit enters deep listening, that silence at night, I'm sure I, I get cuddled by my Nana all my Nana's and all my Pops you know? And I sit on country and they sing in language to me. And that's where I'm truly at peace. And at home I'm home long way away from here, you know. I'm right.
Music: The Mission Songs Project - Now Is The Hour Medley
AR: Huge thanks to Kutcha Edwards and Jessie Lloyd for being part of this episode and for letting us use their music on the show. Thanks also to Joe Geia for permission to use his track Yil Lull. The songs you heard in this episode were ‘Blind Joe’s Creek’ and ‘Scars’ by Kutcha Edwards, ‘Yil Lul’l by Joe Geia and from The Mission Songs Project and Jessie Lloyd: ‘The Irex’, ‘Outcast Half Caste’, ‘Middle Camp’,’ Down In the Kitchen (Reprise)’ and ‘Now Is The Hour Medley’.Please go and buy this music! Thanks to Beth Atkinson Quinton for editorial Support. And we shall see you next time with the final story for season one of All Ears!
A little reminder that you can connect with me online via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at hear all ears, thats H-E-A-R All Ears, and full transcripts of each show are available on the Broadwave website. Plus, the other shows that they're putting out, they're great.
Multiple voices: [SFX: Broadwave, Broadwave, Broadwave, Broadwave, Broadwave.]