REFERENDUM SONGS

Buried Country was represented on last weekend’s fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Referendum that accorded Australian Aboriginal people citizenship in their own country – a weekend when Aboriginal people were making more history with the Uluru conference on constitutional recognition – when I was honoured to be asked to go into ABC Local Radio in Sydney and, with the ABC’s Indigenous Affairs Editor Stan Grant, go on a ‘Sonic Journey’ on Simon Marnie’s morning show through some of the pertinent music of the era. Stan is a long-standing Buried Country fan (“It’s the soundtrack to my life,” he said), and a top fella who really knows his tunes. 

​Our hour included the unveiling of a recently remastered version (thanks to Darren Hanlon and the guys from Vinyl Frontier) of Jimmy Little’s legendary B-Side from 1958, “Give the Coloured Lad a Chance,” which was written by his father and certainly the first-ever Aboriginal ‘protest’ song committed to wax. Given the nature of the song, the nature of Australian radio back when and the rarity of the record (I’d not even seen a copy until just recently, when Bruce Milne gave me this one; thanks Bruce), it’s possible that this is the first time it’s ever been heard on air, period! If the podcast of Simon's show has already disappeared, you will have to wait to hear it: The track will hopefully be included on a new Buried Country vinyl LP coming out of America soon; but that’s another story I’ll get to in good time…