Midnight Oil 'Song a Day' #29 "Warakurna"

Check this song version from the anti-logging protests in Canada in 1993!!

We are in that part of the set where 'Diesel and Dust' features and sets the tone. If I close my eyes I can still see myself sitting in the share house on the lounge listening to this CD for the very first time. I was scanning the lyrics, amazed at it's clarity and themes as this campfire songbook unfolded and invited me on the journey through the outback and into the story and struggle of our indigenous brothers and sisters!! Later reading Andrew McMillan's "Strict Rules" the story of this album would be clear. There are lines in these songs that conjure immediate images, like...

"In Redfern as there is in Alice..."

"Some folks live in water tanks

Some folks live in red brick flats..."

I remember thinking how gutsy it was to name these issues around European impact on indigenous culture but also the need that one way or another change is needed and however flawed, it's images and advocacy like this that led to focus on the "Close the Gap" types of programs...

It begins with the ethos or value that "There is enough for everyone..." a clear message to dominant culture that our attitude, laws and responses need to be challenged and changed!!

Many a concert as the music goes acoustic all you can hear is a room full of very bloke voices singing out every line... "Diesel and dust is what we breathe..." it always makes me feel very Australian and brings back vivid images of the red dust of WA...

"Warakurna"
There is enough for everyone
In Redfern as there is in Alice
This is not the Buckingham Palace
This the crown land
This is the brown land
This is not our land
Some folks live in water tanks
Some folks live in red brick flats
There is enough, the law is carved in granite
It's been shaped by wind and rain
White law could be wrong
Black law could be strong
Warakurna, cars will roll
Don't drink by the water hole
Court fines on the shopfront wall
Beat the grog and save your soul
Some people laugh, some never learn
This land must change or land must burn
Some people sleep, some people yearn
This land must change or land must burn
Diesel and dust is what we breathe
This land don't change and we don't leave
Some people live, some never die
This land…