‘And we hear the children crying and we don’t know what to do’

We might not, but he did. And I imagine it went something like this.

It was the news item one too many. It doesn’t matter if he’d heard it on the evening news or the radio. Maybe it was one he read in his daily newspaper. He’d had enough of the rise of Trump with his divisiveness; the bombing of the innocents in the hospitals and schools of Syria. Sure, they were bad, upsetting – but what really got to him was what was happening in his own country; a country he loved dearly despite all it had thrown at him, personally, in the past. Abbott, Dutton, Morrison – even Turnbull, whom he’d once had such hopes for – they all used their weasel words to give credence to their foul policies. They would one day be held to account for them; of that he had no doubt. He knew that yet another Prime Minister would have to stand up and say ‘Sorry’ for the misdeeds of his/her predecessors. It would be a fair bet, though, he wouldn’t live long enough to see that day – but he had the one apology that mattered to him the most. He found it difficult to credit that his land, once so generous to those fleeing war and persecution, could now close its welcoming doors in the name of border protection. Could incarcerate those men, women and children who made it through; incarcerate them indefinitely in tropical hell holes. Subjecting those poor souls to mental depression and self harm – our government seemed to him to be making life as intolerable as possible. Even worse, it gave them no hope of any form of a future worth living. The nation’s leaders were falling over themselves to be hairy-chested on the topic and the country had again elected the redneck redhead to spit her venom out; to again be the darling of the shock-jocks. He just shook his old head at it all, over and over.

Yes, it was too much. He grabbed his notepad and took to his seat out on the porch where a gentle zephyr and sun’s rays would clear his head. His abode, near Robe in South Australia, was his haven, but it would be remiss of him to become insular. Remiss not to at least try to change the minds who counted on where they were leading Australia. He’d done it before, he could do it again with the power of his words. He knew he’d be listened to.

As he sat and thought and considered what shape these words would take he also cast his mind to her, his beloved Ruby. She’d been gone now for five long years and even his words couldn’t start to tell how much she was missed. He wondered what she would have thought of these odious men, supposedly of Christian values, or so they claimed, who inflicted so much misery. She always saw the best in people – saw the best in him, too, when he was down and out in the gutter all those years before. He knew she’d be appalled as well. He owed it to her to do something about it. He knew his voice was not alone – his would be one of a number of humane compatriots doing their best to bring pressure to bear. Ruby was only 54 when she left him and, by rights, it should have been him, he reflected. He survived a stoke and losing part of his lung to cancer, but he carries on, doing what he has done so well for decades. He understood the verses he was about to scribe would need to be strong to cut through – just as another batch of lines had done so decades before when he started out on his musical journey. And his new project was centred on the nature of love. He would make what he now wrote to fit in with what had already been prepared.

When he finished Archie was satisfied with the outcome. And he already had a melody to it swirling around in his head. His mate Craig, who’d produced his last CD collection, liked it when he plucked it out on guitar for him, softly crooning him the words. He gave the tune a title – and eventually, between them, Archie and the producer decided that it embraced something of what he wanted to make plain in an album devoted to love in all its forms. It was, they felt, even strong enough to be the lead in song, as well as giving it’s title to the whole; it having eleven new compositions in total.

Archie Roach knows the power that music has as a means of making people respond to a message. They will listen to ‘Let Love Rule’, just as they listened, all those years ago, when his recorded CD appeared. His 1990 debut, ‘Charcoal Lane’, had a song that made the nation sit up and take notice – ‘Took the Children Away’ – an introduction, for many for us, to what was a blot on our history. The protest song bought to the attention of the mainstream the Stolen Generation. If it’s one thing Archie knows it is that Australians, at their core, are, in the main, compassionate – even if that is not reflected by the flinty-heartedness of our government leaders.

It was music, with Ruby’s help, that raised him up from that Gertrude Street gutter. It was music that helped him over her death and his health issues. His last release of new material, ‘Into the Bloodstream’, was a salve to his broken heart and broken body. It lifted him up and got him running again. He knew, physically, it would be a struggle to tour this new product of his – but he is, as I type, on the road doing just that. He wants us all to hear this particular message. For, as he has stated, he fears, that as a nation, ‘We are closing ourselves off and not letting people in. And not just in the sense of not letting them into the country, but not letting them into our hearts, into our minds. He feels ‘This country was built on people coming here from other countries. That’s what has made Australia what it is today.’

Archie Roach is a living national treasure. As Stan Grant comments, ‘How would anyone not open their hearts to… Archie? (He is)… a gentle soul singing with no bitterness. (He) wasn’t about politics,…(he) was about people.’

The artist Ai Weiwei, in his recent massive exhibition at the NGV, shared with Andy Warhol, fully recognised Archie’s contribution to national healing with his Lego based installation for the ‘Letgo Room’. His likeness of Archie has been donated to that gallery for posterity and is the image on the cover of ‘Let Love Go’.

So take a trip to YouTube and have a listen – or, even better, buy the album. Archie is trying so hard to heal; to give an alternate view to that of our pathetic politicians who are anything but healers. And the final word goes to the musician. As part of his promotion for ‘Let Love Rule’, in an interview for the Weekend Australian Magazine, he was asked what keeps him going. His reply, ‘When you’re writing songs, when you sit back and think about what love is, you realise there’s no one answer to that; love is so many things. It’s how I relate to not just family and friends, but to the rest of the country and the world; that’s when I realise that, sure, I’m Aboriginal, but I’m Australian, and I realise that I actually feel and appreciate and love Australians. Basically, we’re a good people and a loving people. I grew up in a place where people had a basic respect for each other; you barracked for the underdog.’

One day, Archie, we’ll get back that core Aussie value

Let Love Rule
Oh when darkness overcomes us
And we cannot find our way
And though we keep on searching
For the light of day

And we hear the children crying
And we don’t know what to do
Gotta hold on to each other
And love will see us through

Let love rule; let it guide us through the night
That we may stay together and keep our spirits calm
Only fools will shun the morning light
Cos love’s the only thing that’ll keep us safe from harm

Oh I cover up my ears so I cannot hear
The voices of hate and the voices of fear
And I cover up my eyes so I cannot see
What’s happened to this country that used to be free

Let love rule; let it guide us through the night
That we may stay together and keep our spirits calm
Only fools will shun the morning light
Cos love’s the only thing that’ll keep us safe from harm

You know I love this country, every rock and every tree
The grasslands and the desert, the rivers and the sea
Oh you know I love the people, wherever they are from
Yes I love all the people, who call this land their home

Archie singing ‘Let Love Rule ‘ = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TH_zlvxNIQ

Archie’s website  = http://archieroach.com.au/

For many of us Leonard Cohen was the greatest songwriter of them all. Utterly unique and impossible to imitate no matter how hard we tried. He will be deeply missed by so many. – Nick Cave

I was so sad when Katie texted through the news. I purchased the ‘Songs of Leonard Cohen’ when I was still in uni. He has been a constant in my orb down through the decades. A few years back we saw him perform in Hobart. It was special reaching for Katie’s hand and holding it as he entered his irreplaceable voice into the strains of ‘Hallelujah’, the favourite song of many, along with ‘Suzanne’, ‘Bird on the Wire’ and countless other choices. Mine, though, was the song he opened his concert with that evening. It always makes me think of my beautiful Leigh and the life we share together – a life that I hope will go on and on till the end of time.

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh, let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We’re both of us beneath our love, we’re both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Leonard Cohen’s Letter to his ‘So Long, Marianne’ Muse Before Her Death
‘Well Marianne it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road .‘

She, his lover on a Greek island paradise during the 60s, reached out her hand when the missive was read to her. She passed two days later. And Leonard was right. He followed Marianne on up into the arms of Her beyond the horizon to the silver lining in the sky where they’ll both dance on – on until the end of love . RIP Leonard.

I like Willie. I shouldn’t need to apologise for that, should I? I was once expected to – but that’s another story. I hope Willie, like Keith Richards, can go on forever – that the drugs that addled their past, but left the music undiminished, will be as death-defying for Willie as for KR. For Willie, his DOC (Drug Of Choice) is the weed – will that embalm him, too, even if it’s a softer tote to what the Rolling Stone has imbibed down through the decades? And to be cliched, I’m hoping there are many more years of him giving us great music and being still frisky enough to get out there to be ‘on the road again’. All this brings me to Willie’s latest – ‘For the Good Times’, a tribute to Ray Price. Who’s Ray Price, you may ask? For unless you’re steeped in country music history, he may have passed you by. Well he was no less than Nashville royalty – and I owned him, once upon a time, on vinyl. On this new album Willie works his way through some classics Ray recorded during his long career. One of the titles, though, did make me ponder on the reasoning behind its inclusion. It’s a Willie original – and one that I love. So I took to the ether and as a result of that puzzlement, discovered a tale that was, or is, a thing of beauty.

Now I knew Ray and Willie went way back, even if Ray is old style Nashville and straight as a dye. Willie, of course, is the godfather of outlaw country and not afraid to flaunt the rules in every way, including his copious partaking of the weed. So imagine the stir when Ray, the Grand Ole Opry superstar, was pinged, back in 1999, for the possession of marijuana. Yes, he had been consorting with Willie.

Ray was a Texan, born in 1926. Growing up he had aspirations of becoming a vet, but learnt the guitar and found he possessed a high lonesome style of singing that was popular then. He started plying both around his local area during his teenage years. He achieved some recognition on Texas radio and then tested his luck by moving to Nashville in the early 50s. For a while he actually roomed with Hank Williams. Remember the Engelbert Humperdinck’s hit ‘Release Me’ – well Ray successfully covered that song a decade beforehand when he was honky tonkin’ around the traps. In the sixties he joined the singers who converted to the Nashville Sound that WN and co abhorred – lush ballads, with a big orchestral backing and a chorus of thousands. He blanded out Kristofferson’s ‘For the Good Times’ and had a huge hit with it.

Now for much of his career Ray’s producer was long time friend Fred Foster. When the time came around for a new album Fred’d send around to RP a stack of songs on cassette for consideration. Ray would drive up and down the country roads of his vicinity in his pick up, listening to the tracks, settling his mind as to which would feature on his new product. It was his tried and tested method that worked right up till and into our new millennium. In these later years he began touring with Willie and Merle Haggard, now also sadly departed, as a trio, in Highwaymen style. He was well into his eighties when he recorded ‘Last of the Breed’ with his touring buddies. This contained some of the threesome’s favourite tunes and was his third collaboration with Mr Nelson, released in 2007. A few years later, in 2012, Fred rang Ray’s wife, Janie, asking her, ‘How does it feel to be the most loved woman in the world?’

So the composition that interested me on Willie’s ‘For the Good Times’? The song was in the mix with tracks such as the title tune, as well as ‘Heartaches by the Number’, ‘City Lights’, ‘Make the World Go Away’ and ‘I’m Still Not Over You’. I thought when Willie originally recorded the particular song in question Ray would have been long gone, but I was wrong. He was still very much around, as is obvious from the above, when it came out on a Willie album. ‘It Always Will Be’ was the eponymous song of a 2004 collection that I think is the best of the great man’s recent product. The lyrics are a heartfelt paean to the love of a woman – a track that is lovingly sung as only Willie can do. When I first heard it it sent shivers up and down my spine – still does each time I play it. With its inclusion again on this new 2016 selection of songs, it takes on a whole new meaning.

By 2012 Ray knew he was dying. He’d confirmed to the press he had pancreatic cancer, but joked that, at 87, he was far too young to go. By then he had contacted Fred, telling him that, despite the odds, he thought he had one more in him.

Price had married Janie way back in 1970. She was the love of his life, but the dying musician was concerned that he had never really expressed that fact to her. As Janie herself states, ‘Ray wasn’t a mushy man, and there wasn’t all that ‘I love you’ stuff. If I’d asked, he’d just say, ‘I would not have married you had I not loved you‘. Ray and Janie were a Nashville success story as far as marriages went. Compare him to fellow country troubadour Steve Earle who has been married and divorced seven times. The couple worked as a team. Janie managed all his paperwork and had an input into his song selections for recording on all of his discography, except for this last outing.

Just before his death the couple were riding home in the pick-up, after a painful bout of chemotherapy, when Ray’s phone rang. It was Foster, calling him to say the final mix on his album had been completed and the results would be in the mail the next day. Ray then passed his mobile over to Janie and Fred posed her that question. Janie asked Fred what he meant by it and the producer explained. He told her that her husband’s final album would be dedicated to her and contain her favourite tunes – a duet with Martina McBride on ‘An Affair to Remember’, ‘Beautiful Dreamer’, ‘Among My Souvenirs’, ‘I Believe’, ‘Beauty Lies Within the Eye of the Beholder’ as well, of course, as ‘It Always Will Be’, amongst others.

When she heard this news, Janie was overcome with emotion – so much so that she had to immediately park the vehicle. In the car park of a local restaurant, old Ray, at death’s door, turned to his soul mate and stated, ‘All these years you’ve asked me if I really loved you, and I have been remiss in telling you how I feel.’ He was now doing it, albeit somewhat late in the piece, in the best way he knew how. ‘I want you to have it to listen to when I’m not here, to hear me telling you how much I love you.’ The album’s title? ‘Beauty Is’.

The following day Ray took his beloved Janie to the pick-up to listen to his mint new, but final, collection of songs. On hearing it in full, she cried and cried and cried. She knew what it meant. And within two months the old country crooner was dead. Nowadays she still goes through a box full of tissues each times she listens to it. Perhaps a tear will also come to your eye if you travel to YouTube to source either Willie or Ray’s version of ‘It Always will Be’ – where there also resides much else by the great Ray Price.

Now your scribe has an atonal voice like a foghorn, but there is a Janie in his world too who is remarkable and much loved – his beautiful Leigh. I can’t leave such a heartfelt musical legacy to her, but my dear lady you do know that forever and a day – ‘It always will be. It always will be.’

YouTube – Willie Nelson ‘It Always Will Be’ = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp4XePyJW6c

YouTube – Ray Price ‘It Always Will Be’ = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtSsTnSN6HU

I wondered and wondered and am still not exactly sure I pinned her correctly.
To feel you all around me and to take your hand
Along the sand
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind
Perhaps catch the girl more like, but which girl?

Down through the years and decades Donovan’s ‘Catch the Wind’, through its several versions and umpteen covers, has always been a favourite ditty for me. So when it re-entered my world recently, via a mint new take, listening to it drew my thoughts back to a faraway place when it encapsulated my yearnings for her. But I couldn’t place exactly who that ‘her’ was, but it must have been someone pretty special to get me so worked up that I pined for her in tune with the Donovan classic. Maybe checking out the song’s provenance would assist me in identifying her – for mysteries like it tend to play on my mind. I was sure it would hark back to a time in my life when there was a hiatus – a time when the cupboard was bare, so to speak. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but you see, for a few years I’d lost the art. And it was/is an art and I have always been pretty artless in what appeals to the opposite gender – but since then I have been luckier in my life

Now those of you with memories that stretch back as far as mine may recall the song – or it may have been in a parent’s collection, even if you cannot place its composer/performer. ‘Catch the Wind’ came into being in 1965, put together by one Donovan Leitch who, perhaps understandably, chose to be known around the traps simply by his first name. It reached No.4 in the UK and 23 in the US. Born in 1946, Donovan’s still around, but his glory years were long ago, ’65 till ’69. He was mates with Brian Jones and taught John Lennon how to finger-pick. For a time he had a close friendship with Joan Baez – instrumental in causing my pondering on yesteryear. His string of hits included ‘Colours’ and ‘Universal Soldier’ early on, but then he really hit his straps with ‘Sunshine Superman’, ‘Hurdy-Gurdy Man’, with the biggie being ‘Mellow Yellow’.

Was I aware of it way back in 1965? I may have been, but at a callow 14 I was just developing my interest in music. The opposite sex, though, wasn’t really on my radar then, so I doubt there would have been much cause for angst over a girl in my Grade 8 year.

Because of label issues, the song was revamped and re-released for a ‘Greatest Hits’ package in ’68. Now this is more like it. The new version was produced by Mickie Most and became a more complex entity. It was probably this adaptation that so caught my ear back then – that so impacted.

Personally, in the opposite sex department, 1968 was a good year for me, having a relationship with two lovely young ladies over the course of that year into ’69 – then came the fallow times. I’d have ‘crushes’, I’d give and occasionally receive ‘looks’ from across a classroom or lecture theatre that would seem promising; conversations that I felt could have led to something. But nothing developed – zilch. Yep. In that period I may have as well ‘tried to catch the wind‘ as had anything remotely meaningful with any of those lasses I had my eye on.

There were several that aroused my passions in my final year of education in Burnie, followed by more whilst at a Hobart university hall of residence – sadly not co-ed. But which one caused me to curl up on my bed in the foetal position with unrequited love on my mind, having ‘Catch the Wind’ on repeat playings. Back then this required frequent lifting and dropping of the stylus, or constant cassette rewindings – quite labour intensive. She was so elusive, whoever she was – just giving me enough to keep me interested, but back then I had become obtuse in reading the signs. My confidence was shot.

After listening to the tune anew recently, I spent several sessions in my morning bath, trying to figure out which one from that faraway period was her? Who was that girl in the late sixties/early seventies who had me wallowing? She no doubt was someone who I truly wanted to cause me to ‘leave all my blues behind‘ because it so seemed ‘everywhere I’d look…(her) eyes I’d find‘. But it, obviously, was never to be. And eventually, in amongst the suds, I think I figured it out.

In fact, I have previously scribbled about her before in one of my Burnie Tales, ‘Honey’. She was Ellen – not her real name I hasten to add. In fact, Ellen was an amalgam of several girls I knew during that barren period. It was a ‘what if’ tale – what if I had succeeded in attracting her, or even one of those girls, then? In reality Ellen and I never made it to anywhere near the stage of ‘taking her hand along the sand’, for she was drawn to more sporty types – ace footballers and surfer-dudes; the in-crowd. I was no match. But she was one of a number back then – but I seem to recall I was partially attracted to her because she, like me, was a olive-hued sun-worshipper, a habitué of the beaches around Burnie.

The direct reason for this visitation to a song and a girl of long ago was listening to a brand new cover of the former, sung by two glorious troubadours who have been around for a considerable time – in fact one was celebrating her seventy-fifth birthday in concert. In it Joan was perhaps recalling her days when the writer of the tune was her mate, Mary perhaps thinking how fortunate she was to be on stage singing along with a legend.

Joan Baez has just released a double album of songs, mostly in tandem with a guested notable, from her pomp. I reckon most know of her, if not for her music, perhaps because of her relationship with Bob Dylan. She was an early champion as well as lover. Her biggest hits – surely you will recall her now – ‘We Shall Overcome’, ‘The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down’. I was reclining in the man-cave, listening to the anniversary suite of songs for the first time when ‘Catch the Wind’ lilted into my aural appendages.

On this she was accompanied by Mary Chapin Carpenter – perhaps not such a familiar name. This artist’s most successful years were from ’89 till ’96. Her triumph was the 1992 collection ‘Come On, Come On’ yielding seven hits on the US country charts. She has won five Grammys over the years, but during this new millennium has largely sunk from view as her albums became deemed not radio-friendly enough, whatever that means. But early this year I purchased her latest, ‘Things that We Are Made Of ‘. I reckon it’s up there with her best.

And yours truly started trying to figure out who that elusive girl was as the duo trilled to the beat of ‘Catch the Wind’; the one who caused so much early adult longing. On that early spring afternoon, with the sun coming in on me, I was immediately transported anew to those times when I fretted about being left out as, unlike most of my mates, I could not find myself a girlfriend. That’s what came back to me, caused by an old song sung by two consummate performers. Of course, eventually it all changed for me – but in the deep recess of my mind she still flutters – that elusive girl.

Donovan sings the song = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-c9sr_qF8I