How Can We Dance (Part 1)

I’d like to acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of the nation many of us call Australia.

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be aware that this episode contains the voices and words of people who have died.

This is part one of our two-part exploration of Australian political and protest songs. We explore the role of music in bringing about social and political change, and discover the songs that have helped disseminate information, change public opinion, galvanize a movement, or even transform laws or policies.

Find the episode playlist on the Spotify Cara Diaria artist page.  Send questions or compliments to mykindofscenepod[@]gmail.com.

Sources:

• Wikipedia
•  “Jimmy Little’s ‘The Coloured Lad’ was a plea for a fair go” abc.net.au. June 1, 2021.
• Browne, D. “‘I Am Woman’: How Helen Reddy’s Feminist Anthem Quietly Changed Pop” Rolling Stone, Sep 30, 2020
• “I Was Only 19 (A Walk in the Light Green) by Redgum” Awesome Aussie Songs, Dec 30, 2021
• Williams, M. “I was only 19: The real soldier behind the Australian Vietnam veterans' anthem” abc.net.au, Nov 10, 2016
• “Vietnam War 1962–75” Australian War Memorial
• Hughes, R. “How Midnight Oil made an art of mixing politics with music” Louder, Jun 22, 2017
• McCabe, K. “Peter Garrett reflects on Midnight Oil anthem Beds Are Burning as you decide the Best ARIA Song” News.com.au, Nov 14, 2016

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Transcript

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Intro   00:00 

I’d like to start this episode by acknowledging and paying respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of the nation many of us call Australia.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be aware that this episode contains the voices and words of people who have died.

Welcome to My Kind of Scene, where we uncover the past and present of Australian music.

I’m Cara Diaria, indie musician and music nerd, bringing my unique perspective to the hits and misses, the movers and shakers, the goodness and greatness that makes the Australian music scene, My Kind of Scene.

As I sat down to write this episode of the podcast, it was a rather politically charged time. The Australian federal election had just been held, heralding a change of government after 9 years, and giving hope for a more progressive future. It was National Reconciliation Week – with the theme "Be Brave. Make Change" – a call to everyone to take active steps to strengthen relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and non-Indigenous peoples, in light of the devastating land dispossession, violence and racism that have characterized Australia’s colonial history. Speaking of which, June also marked Queen Elizabeth the Second’s Platinum Jubilee – 70 years of rule over the British Commonwealth – whatever that actually means in this day and age. The occasion has had many Australians wondering whether it might soon be time for our nation to find its independence.

In the United States, the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police had many reflecting on the 2020 summer of protests, with millions across the nation, and indeed the world, crying out against the shocking brutality perpetrated against too many Black and brown people, by the police who are supposed to protect and serve them.

The nation was also confronted with a series of horrific mass shootings, sparking yet another debate over gun control that seems doomed to fail to effect meaningful change. A leaked Supreme Court draft signposted the imminent removal of federal abortion rights, a decision which would also disproportionately impact people of color. All of this was occurring against a backdrop of committee hearings investigating the January 6th 2021 attack on the United States Capitol by a violent pack of insurrectionists, apparently egged on by the outgoing President and Commander-In-Chief.

And in Europe, the horrors of war were playing out yet again, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which forced over 5 million people to flee their country and had the world reeling daily from fresh atrocities inflicted on people just trying to live their lives.

All of this got me wondering about the role of music in bringing about social and political change. What Australian songs have helped disseminate information, change public opinion, galvanize a movement, or even transform laws or policies? 

It turns out there’s a very strong tradition of Aussies using music to make political statements. Too many great stories to fit into one episode, so this is part one of our two-part exploration of Australian political and protest songs.

Give the Coloured Boy a Chance  04:06

One of the earliest songs with a political message to enter the Australian pop pantheon was recorded by Jimmy Little, an Aboriginal musician of the Yorta Yorta and Yuin tribes, born in 1937. Raised on the Cummeragunja Reserve, in New South Wales by Vaudevillian performer parents, Jimmy grew up playing guitar and singing. Influenced by Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis and Jim Reeves, he established himself during the 1960s recording versions of popular country songs and ballads, like "El Paso" and "Danny Boy." For a long time, he was the only Indigenous artist on the radio and the charts. 

According to Little, <quote> "I was a novelty. Because I was the only dark-skinned performer in that time." <unquote> Across his remarkable 60 year career, Jimmy Little released over 35 albums, had 5 top-40 singles and won APRA, ARIA and Deadly Awards.

One of Little’s earliest singles, though, was not an American or British classic – it was from much closer to home. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, his father, Jimmy Little Senior, wrote a song that expressed his frustration with the struggle many Aboriginal people were having to find work, and the racism that prevented them from doing so. When young Jimmy signed his recording contract in the late 50s, he recorded his dad’s song.

Many years later, Queensland folk rock artist Darren Hanlon came across a rare copy of the song, known as either "The Coloured Lad" or "Give the Coloured Boy a Chance," and was moved by its method as much as its message. 

<Quote> "I think what makes 'The Coloured Lad' so heartbreaking is its sweet and gentle delivery. It's considered a protest song but it's hardly angry. The protagonist is there begging, 'Just give us a chance', you know?" <unquote>

Frances Peters-Little, Jimmy’s daughter, and a filmmaker, historian and performing artist in her own right, said of the song, <quote> "No one had thought that they were making a political statement, even though the song is most probably the first Aboriginal political song recorded for commercial use. My father would sing the song live in clubs, hotels and Town Halls, and it was never really met with confrontation." <unquote>

In 1999, Jimmy Little was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. In 2004, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia "for service to the entertainment industry as a singer, recording artist and songwriter and to the community through reconciliation and as an ambassador for Indigenous culture."

I am Woman  08:12

By the early 1970s, the second-wave feminist movement was in full swing, bringing awareness and debate to a range of women’s equality issues, including sexuality, family, domesticity, the workplace, and reproductive rights.

The most prominent anthem of this global movement was Helen Reddy’s "I Am Woman," which came along at a time when Reddy’s contemporaries like Carole King, Carly Simon and Suzi Quatro were challenging the norms around how women made music – proving they could write and produce their own songs and even lead their own bands.

Far from the stereotypical bra-burning feminist, however, Reddy was not the obvious poster-woman for the movement. Her previous hit was Mary Magdalene’s torch ballad from Jesus Christ Superstar and her sound tended towards easy listening jazz-tinged pop. But Reddy felt a growing passion for female empowerment, fueled by years of being objectified and demeaned, on- and off-stage.

Years later, she said, <quote> “I couldn't find any songs that said what I thought being a woman was about. I thought about all these strong women in my family who had gotten through the Depression and world wars and drunken, abusive husbands. But there was nothing in music that reflected that." <unquote>

Her search for a song that represented this passion led her to pen her own.

Helen Reddy wrote the lyrics, which she gave to friend and collaborator, Ray Burton, who at the time was playing in Los Angeles with Australian rock band The Executives. The former member of 60s doo-wop band The Delltones, and future founding member of prog rock band, Ayers Rock, worked Reddy’s lyrics into a song that she recorded for her debut album.

"I Am Woman" was the ultimate sleeper hit. Its initial release made little impact, but Reddy noticed it was well-received when she performed it live, and listeners singled out the song in their fan mail. More than a year later, the song was chosen for the opening credit sequence of women’s lib comedy film Stand Up and Be Counted. In case the film was a hit, Reddy’s label decided to release "I Am Woman" as a single, but the song was only around 2 minutes long. They had her write an additional verse and re-recorded the song with some of LA’s finest session musicians.  

The film was not a hit, but the song eventually was. While male radio DJs didn’t love it, their wives and female listeners did. Aided by numerous television performances by a then-heavily pregnant Reddy, the reissued version of "I Am Woman" began a long, slow climb to the top of the charts, taking almost 6 months to reach number 1 in December, 1972. It was the first US number one hit by an Australian-born artist and the first Australian-written song to win a Grammy Award. In her acceptance speech for Best Female Performance, Reddy thanked "God, because She makes everything possible".

Reddy’s signature tune could not have been timed more perfectly to encapsulate the sentiment of the moment. Coinciding with the launch of feminist icon Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine in the US, and Australian mag Cleo that championed female empowerment and sexuality, the song was the perfect cherry on top of the feminist zeitgeist. The song was smooth but spunky, powerful but not angry, imperative but approachable.

In her memoir, National Organization for Women founder Betty Friedan wrote that in 1973, a gala entertainment night in Washington DC at the NOW annual convention closed with the playing of "I Am Woman". 

<quote> "Suddenly, women got out of their seats and started dancing around the hotel ballroom and joining hands in a circle that got larger and larger until maybe a thousand of us were dancing and singing, 'I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman.' It was a spontaneous, beautiful expression of the exhilaration we all felt in those years, women really moving as women." <unquote>

Australian singer Chelsea Cullen did an admirable job of recreating Reddy’s original sound for the 2019 biopic I Am Woman, which documented Helen Reddy’s trajectory from single mother to superstar, which the singer was able to view shortly before her death in 2020.

The song’s arrangement and some of its lyrics may have felt increasingly naff over time, ousted by third- and fourth-wave feminist anthems from Bikini Kill to Beyonce. But, in the wake of the #metoo movement, as American women’s reproductive rights go up in flames, and the Australian parliamentary culture of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault against women faces long overdue reform, I think "I Am Woman" is ripe for reinvention. I would love to see the legend live on with a modern arrangement, perhaps some updated lyrics, maybe a more danceable beat. This star-studded tribute to Helen Reddy from the 2020 ARIA Awards gives us a glimpse of what could be. 

I was Only 19 (A Walk In the Light Green)  15:10

"I Was Only 19 (A Walk in the Light Green)" is a song about the Vietnam War. Not a protest song, per se, but more of an attempt to shed light on how harrowing the war experience was for the young men who served, and the trauma, injuries and PTSD that haunted them on returning home. Rather than glorifying the war, as many ANZAC stories from the First and Second World Wars had, it explored the futile and heartbreaking reality of combat and how the physical and mental scars can last a lifetime.

The song was written by John Schumann, singer of political folk band Redgum, who formed in Adelaide in 1975, meeting through a Politics and Art course at Flinders University. Redgum established themselves over the next few years, playing parties, pubs and protest rallies across South Australia. Redgum’s second and third albums sold decently, but their singles failed to chart – their folk sound and political messages weren’t too radio-friendly in the era of glam-rock and disco. By the early 80s, however, this was about to change.

The Vietnam War was very unpopular with Australians. Almost 60,000 Australians served in the war between 1962 and '73. Through the seventies, many people came to believe the war could not be won, and protests and anti-conscription campaigns escalated. Many resisters, objectors and protesters were fined or jailed. According to the Australian War Memorial, the conflict, <quote> "was the cause of the greatest social and political dissent in Australia since the conscription referendums of the First World War." <unquote>

This sentiment resulted in misplaced animosity towards the war's returning soldiers. They were not given a heroes' welcome, as their World War II predecessors were. Instead, some soldiers were met with anger and hostility.

Although John Schumann was eligible for conscription, he never served in the conflict himself. However, several of his friends did, and he was shocked by how changed they were on their return. On a fantastic episode of the podcast, Awesome Aussie Songs, he recalled the heavy drinking, reckless behavior and thousand-yard stare that now characterized his formerly close mates.

Being one of the two main songwriters for Redgum – according to him, a group of left-wing, university graduates with a socio-political agenda, playing acoustic music – John Schumann was moved to write about those returned soldiers' experiences. Schumann felt the high cost of Australia's response to the war on the young men of his generation, who had endured many unthinkable things while serving their nation. The negativity of Australians only served to amplify their trauma.

Most vets didn’t talk about their time in Vietnam, but Schumann was able to find a way in, through his girlfriend, Denny, short for Denise. Her brother, Mick Storen, agreed to share his experiences, and yes, that's the same Denny referenced in the opening verse of the song.

Over a few beers, Mick filled in details of his time in Nam, from the home comforts they were afforded in the jungle, like VB and pinup girls, to the feeling of dread in heavily land-mined areas, when each step could mean your last on two legs. John crafted a first-person account of a soldier's experience, from the excitement of training and being selected, through the horrors of combat, to the disillusionment and trauma that survived long after many fellow-soldiers didn't.

If you’re wondering about the subtitle – "A Walk in the Light Green" – this is a reference to patrols that took place in the light green areas marked on the map, that is, the areas with little jungle cover and high likelihood of land mines.

Mick had one stipulation with John Schumann sharing his story – he didn’t want the songwriter to use the name of his platoon leader, who, on the day of the moon landing, had stepped on a landmine, causing his own death and injuries to several others. He felt that would be too traumatic for his surviving family and suggested another soldier, Frank Hunt, who was left with disabilities after the blast, might be ok with it, as long as John went and asked him. He did, and Frankie not only agreed to the use of his name, but offered to help promote the song, resulting in a powerful way to connect with people and share the stories and plight of the returned Vietnam vets.

John also promised to show Mick the finished song before releasing it, which he did. Schumann’s future brother-in-law responded that it was <quote> "incredible," and gave it his seal of approval.

Unfortunately, John's Redgum bandmates were not so enthusiastic. They didn't feel this was the right next single for them. Although the song was released under the Redgum name, most of the band's members weren't involved in the recording. Perhaps with hindsight they might have made a different decision; "I Was Only 19" went on to be Redgum’s best known song, hitting number one on the national Kent Music Report for two weeks in 1983. Apparently, the poignant folk tale resonated with Australians, who were perhaps now able to see the returned servicepeople's situation in a different way. But the song's impact didn't stop there.

Australian 60s hit-maker, Normie Rowe, who himself was drafted into service in Vietnam, effectively ending his pop career, credits the release of "I Was Only 19" to be a turning point in public perception – a collective "Ah-ha" moment.

Four years after the release of "I Was Only 19," and 15 years after Australia's involvement with the war ceased, our Vietnam veterans were finally given their due. On October 3, 1987, 25,000 Vietnam veterans marched through the streets of Sydney, in a belated Welcome Home parade. This was followed by a concert in the Domain, where John Schumann performed the song, with Frank "Frankie" Hunt by his side. In 1992, the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial was constructed in Canberra, which includes a wall of words, featuring a quote from "I Was Only 19."

In 2001, the song was named as one of the "Top 30 Australian Songs of All Time," by the Australian Performing Rights Association, and has been referenced in many films, books and TV shows. The song was hugely popular with serving troops in East Timor and Afghanistan. It’s been covered by John Williamson, Lee Kernaghan, Fairport Convention, the Australian Army Band (notably, sung by a female soldier), and in 2005, a hip hop version was produced by The Herd, which was embraced by a generation of Millennials, who voted it in at number 18 on that year's Triple J Hottest 100 poll.

I think sometimes it isn't the noisy protest song that's the most effective at shifting public opinion. In this case, a quiet, acoustic moment that allows people to see through someone else's eyes sparked a major shift in the collective perception.

Beds Are Burning  26:08

But that doesn't mean there's not room for loud protest song every now and then, right?

I don’t think many people will be surprised to find Midnight Oil on a list of Australian protest and political songs. They are world famous for their provocative rock delivered with frontman Peter Garret's signature yowl, powerful live performances and political activism, in their music and beyond.

My first memory of Midnight Oil takes me back to the summer of 1987-88, to the small town called Yea, population eleven hundred, about 90 minutes north-east of Melbourne, where my family and I lived for most of my primary school years. My parents' friends ran the local swimming pool, and summers were spent doing handstands down the shallow end, swimming up to the second ladder of the deep end, and sunbaking on hot cement in our speedos and SP4 or 6, while the radio blared out through the tinny loudspeakers.

I remember hearing Peter Garrett’s distinctive voice sing "How can we sleep while our beds are Bernie?" and thinking, hmmm… why is he singing about my mum, Bernie? I don’t get it. Later at school, my obviously cooler friend Josephine asked, have you heard that song, "Beds are Burning?" "Aha." I thought to myself. "Makes sense now." But it was a few more years before I really understood the metaphor.

Formed in the 1970s, Midnight Oil drew their inspiration from British rock stalwarts The Who and Led Zeppelin, as well as local anti-heroes Radio Birdman, The Saints and AC/DC. But it was Melbourne band Skyhooks, who were writing songs about Australia, that moved Midnight Oil to focus on subjects close to home.

According to Garrett, a politics student who lost both his parents young, <quote> "when we started playing, it was all about landscape, suburban culture and, after a while, Indigenous Australia. We loved our rock, but at the same time we were absorbing this big southern continent and transforming it into music that made sense to us." <unquote>

Refusing to play the commercial game with the music press and TV shows like Countdown that could help to make a band's career, Midnight Oil struggled to get an album deal and ended up starting their own label. Their first 3 albums made the top 50, but it took Midnight Oil some time to really find their musical feet. As well as improving sonically, their material also got progressively more political, and by the time their fourth album was released in 1982, they had perfected the recipe.

The album, titled "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,"  was in the Australian chart for 171 weeks – yes, that’s over 3 years – and spawned defining singles "US Forces," denouncing American military interference in foreign affairs, "Read About It" targeting Rupert Murdoch and the Australian media, and – a personal favorite of mine – a general comment on Australian complacency, "Power and the Passion." I love the crisp 80s production, that pregnant pause before the chorus. The lyrical rallying cry, paraphrasing Mexican revolutionary Emilio Zapata, "It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees." Rob Hirst's incredible electronic drum solo in the bridge and then the huge horn crescendo to the end.  

It's worth mentioning, for 10 weeks in 1982, the album alternated between the top two spots on the charts with another political album. Geelong band Goanna's debut long player, "Spirit of Place," was led by single "Solid Rock." The song was inspired by writer and founding member Shane Howard’s trip to Uluru, where he had what he referred to as a spiritual awakening; a realization that the country he thought was his, wasn’t, and that Europeans had disempowered a whole race of people when they’d arrived.

I've previously mentioned the ABC "Sing!" books that we used to sing and dance to in primary school. Each year a new book would include the music and lyrics of past pop hits, accompanied by a cassette tape, for primary school kids to sing along to in music class. "Solid Rock" was included in Sing '87, which means I would have been in grade 3, about 8 or 9 years old. Maybe because it was more modern than many of the book's other songs, or because we felt the power of the message, or enjoyed the jagged rhythm of the verses resolving into the steady beat and melodic hooks of the chorus, but we loved singing along to "Solid Rock," and it’s had a special place in my heart ever since.

Anyway, back to Midnight Oil. 

In 1985, they recorded "The Dead Heart" for the handing back ceremony of Uluru, the huge sandstone formation in the center of Australia, to its traditional Aboriginal owners. The song spoke to the mistreatment of Indigenous Australians, the absence of recognition of their cultures, and shed a light on the Stolen Generations – Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families between 1909 and the 1970s.

The band was then invited to tour through some of the most remote communities in the Australian outback with the Warumpi Band – a mostly Aboriginal country and rock group from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Warumpi Band had recently released their anthem for unity and solidarity, "Blackfella/Whitefella." This free concert tour was hugely eye-opening for Midnight Oil, who were shocked by the poor conditions so many Indigenous Australians were living in.

In 1986, "The Dead Heart" was released as the lead single from Midnight Oil’s "Diesel and Dust" album, reaching number 4 and becoming the band's highest-charting single. Its B-side was a re-release of Warumpi Band’s "Blackfella/Whitefella" – a great example of passing the mic. "The Dead Heart" also got noticed overseas, breaking into the UK and US singles charts, as well as several other countries. "Diesel and Dust" was Midnight Oil's first number one album, and would become the first of four successive chart-toppers. 

Never ones to rest on their laurels, they followed "The Dead Heart" up with that great song they wrote about my mum… oh hang on, not quite.

The single "Beds are Burning" was a direct result of the Oils outback tour. Peter Garrett has called it the song Midnight Oil was "born to write."

Said Garret, <quote> "In the centre of the country it was only recently that the Aboriginal people had come off their land and stopped living the way that they had for upwards of forty thousand years. No other band of our size had ever been to any of these places. It was an eye-opener. It affected our music, our politics and our way of seeing things. And it stuck to us."

"We started making Diesel And Dust about our experience with Aboriginal people. Their dispossession had caused a lot of problems in their society, and the album almost gave us a rite of passage to take it to the world." <unquote>

"Beds Are Burning" wrapped a desperate plea for reconciliation and land rights into a remarkably head bopping, sing-along package. The single peaked at number six on not only the ARIA charts, but also the UK and US singles charts, and helped propel the album to number one, and 7-times platinum in Australia, number 20 in the UK and 21 in the US, achieving platinum status there.

"Beds Are Burning" won both Single of the Year and Song of the Year at the 1988 ARIA Awards – conspicuously, the bicentennial of European settlement in Australia.

At the closing ceremony of Sydney's 2000 Olympics, in front of a stadium audience of 115,000 and a global TV audience estimated at 3.5 billion, Midnight Oil performed Beds Are Burning, wearing simple black outfits, each adorned with the word "sorry" in white. This was both a shameful reminder of the nation's brutal history, and a direct comment on Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to apologise to Aboriginal Australians on behalf of the government.

Garrett later recalled the reaction. <quote> "When they picked us up on the big screens, everybody jumped up and lots of the athletes came running over to the stage. But Howard didn't stand up. Instead, he and his wife sat there in the midst of this arena that was going crazy. The next morning, Howard stated that he didn't think we should be mixing politics and sport. So, I went on the radio and said: 'That’s what they used to say about people who talked about apartheid.'" <unquote>

Speaking of apartheid, several years earlier, in 1994, the band performed at the first major multi-racial concert in South Africa's history, after Nelson Mandela's inauguration.

Midnight Oil continued to release hit, politically-driven albums and singles throughout the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, taking a break between 2003 and 2017 to allow Peter Garrett to focus on his political career. In 2004, he was elected for the Labour Party in the House of Representatives and in 2007 was appointed Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. He went on to become the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth. While his time in cabinet may be better remembered for its controversies and leadership spills, there can be no denying the influence Peter Garrett and Midnight Oil have had on the Australian political consciousness and public opinion towards Indigenous Australians. Their legacy will endure. 

In 2001, the Australasian Performing Rights Association listed both "Power and the Passion" and "Beds Are Burning" in the Top 30 best Australian Songs of All Time, a chart in which Midnight Oil are the only artists to feature twice. "Beds are Burning" was listed at number 3, after The Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind" and Daddy Cool's "Eagle Rock." The song is also one of the United States' Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll."

Outro  42:38

We're going to leave it here for now – I'm sure you're feeling inspired to go stream some Midnight Oil albums, or delve deeper into Redgum, Helen Reddy or Jimmy Little's back catalogue. We'll pick up next month with some of Australia's best-known protest songs of the past few decades and explore some you might not be so familiar with.

If you want to hear the songs we played again, check out the Cara Diaria page on Spotify – you'll find a playlist featuring all the tunes, plus playlists from previous My Kind of Scene episodes.

What's your favorite Aussie protest song? Send me an email at My Kind of Scene Pod @ gmail.com. 

Thanks for listening to My Kind Of Scene. This episode was written, recorded and produced by Cara Diaria. Theme music by Cara Diaria. Source links are in the show notes. If you enjoyed it, please rate and review us, and tell your friends.