Monday's Muse

In a recent blog post I wrote about 'Home' being the inspiration and theme for the next album.

I've been reading a lot about Australian history told from the Indigenous perspective and have just finished a history book called 'First Australians.'

The book was written to accompany the SBS TV series and is edited by Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton. It reveals true stories of friendship, revenge, loss and victory told by seven of Australia's leading historians including Bruce Pascoe- who also wrote an outstanding book called 'Convincing Ground' (amongst others.)

First Australians covers from 1788, when Governor Phillip arrived in Warrane (now Sydney) and befriended Bennelong, an aboriginal leader of the Eora people, to 1993 with Koiki Mabo's challenge to the federal government for Indigenous land rights- his campaign which overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius.

The book is an incredible insight into a history that has been buried, avoided in the school curriculum, distorted and silenced. I thoroughly recommend reading it.

It inspired a song which I named 'Spadeful of Ground' and here is the first verse...

What would you give for a spadeful of ground?

Would you sail over seas?

Would you almost drown?

For a pocket of dirt, you will lie, you will hurt

For a piece of this land you'll have blood on your hands