Embarrassingly, I didn't know this story and it's importance until I heard this song. I went on a trip to Wattie Creek(near Winton, Qld) last year. Seeing the Prime Minister pour sand into Vincent's hand still gives me goosebumps. Simple and significant symbolism. A bit like Paul's songs.
Hi Peter. I do not wish to sound like a knob, but the Wattie Creek mentioned in the song is in the NT. It is where the Gurindji people camped and is the original settlement for them. The main town in the area now is Kalkaringi (sometimes spelt as Kalkarindji). The Wave Hill Station is from memory about 20 kms to the south east of the townships. The area is on the Victoria River and close to the WA border I totally agree with what you say about Gough pouring the sand into Vincent's hand as a very powerful symbolic gesture - it continually has a profound impact on me
Missy Higgins (the short haired brunette) Clare Bowditch (the redhead) and Dan Sultan (the big 1st nation guy who does blues rock) are all worth checking out. Start with Missy Higging's 1st hit "Scar."
Also check out Missy on Like A Version, singing Everyone’s Waiting. Absolutely beautiful. And for Dan Sultan, Singing with Ella Hooper, try their version of With A Little Help from my Friends cover. He kicks it out of the park.
We all love an underdog story and stories of injustices being righted. When it’s told as well as that it becomes pretty powerful. I absolutely love Missy Higgins in everything I’ve heard her do. She’s a major talent.
Thanks so much. I always tear up when I hear this song. It gives me pride and a sense of hope that we can make changes for the better, despite the setbacks. And also thanks for the cultural warning at the start. People often don’t appreciate its relevance and importance to First Nations peoples.
The first girl with red hair is Clair Bowdich and the guy is Dan Sultan. Missy Higgins is the girl with short dark hair. Thanks Chris, great choices so far 🥰
What an amazing version. Love Paul Kelly. Missy Higgins has a beautiful and unique voice. Dan Sultin is also great. Thanks guys. Will go back & watch yesterday's song
Glad this song got brought out because the story telling is amazing in this. Bradman is also another song with great story telling that I love, but don't imagine seeing that this week. Can't wait to see what other classics we get - Really hope that the rest of the week sees "From St Kilda to King's Cross", "Careless" and "Leaps and Bounds"... can't wait to see what's next.
Kev Carmody is an amazing story and I think Australia's greatest and most important songwriter. He left school and was working as a drover running cattle at the age of 12 and did all sorts of jobs, when he released his debut single 'Thou Shalt not Steal' in 1988 he was the ripe old age of 42. (a most astounding song) He has gone on to make several amazing albums, always pushing the musical envelope on arrangement and lyrics, but always telling an honest truth. He is not as widely known over here as he should be (co writing From Little Things Big Things Grow is where most make a connection) but is revered by the entire musical community. So much so he has had 2 albums of his songs recorded by the cream of the Australian music industry (including Missy Higgins, Paul Kelly, John Butler, Jimmy Barnes, Kasey Chambers, Courtney Barnett, etc), that is where this live concert footage stemmed from with those artists performing his songs. His songs can range from overtly political to incredibly emotional and the ways he paints a picture of Australia is unique to someone who has spent an entire life in the bush. These are a couple to get started with. 'Droving Woman' - one of the most beautiful love songs I've ever heard, it so very real and vivid it still hits as hard now. (His version is great, but the Paul Kelly, Missy & Glen Richards (Augie March) version from this concert is very special) 'Thou Shalt not Steal'- his debut and still one of the most powerful songs ever written about the indigenous struggle and hypocrisy of colonization. Other songs include Eulogy , Cannot buy my Soul, Riders on the Rain, I've been Moved , Moonstruck and so many, many more are just magic. I would love to see Chris get a week of his songs together as he will touch you in ways that only the greatest musicians do.
Yes, Paul Glen and missy doing the drover is pretty special, kev carmody is pretty special..may not listen to his music for 12 to 18 months and as soon as l do l play all his albums again and again.lm a white guy but his a bit of a hero to me, and lm no fan of hero worship..
Ok Chris, you have me on this one. I knew this performance would be in here, but I didn't imagine it would be this early in the week. This just means you have better stuff to come. I'm looking forward to that. This song is such an important depiction of a moment in time where everything seemed against Australia's First Nation's Peoples, this song personalises the wrongs and the misdeeds perpetrated upon them. Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody (and friends here in this track) combine to make a powerful statement about land rights. Brave men like Vincent Lingiari and Eddie Mabo are heroes to me. They gave so much to their cause. Chris, you are chiselling me into a corner here; I had a personal attachment to one of the songs (Billy Baxter) from Day One of this week. Now I have a personal attachment to day two. When my youngest son was in Grade Four, for their music class end of year concert, "From Little Things Big Things Grow" was the song they played. I remember helping my son learn the chords he had to play. ... no wonder he messed up. Alex, George and Chris; I loved today's video, and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.
Correct, correct, correct, correct, correct .. but hell no to Gough Whitlam being a great Prime Minister ... UNIDROIT. TREATY-OF-ROME He could pour the 'handful of sand' because he already sold out the entire country to Rome (the state).
Correct, correct, correct, correct but hell no to Gough Whitlam being a great Prime Minister, he signed the entire country up to UNIDROIT. TREATY-OF-ROME in 1973. He could 'pour the handful of sand' in 1975 as he had already sold us all out to Rome (the State).
Yes that beautiful version is impossible not to get moved by. Great if it could happen in real life. Love hearing real Aussie female singers. For me the highlight. Thank you
What I love is Vincent Lingiari's comment that " we know how to wait ". The Station Owners thought that the Aboriginal Stockmen couldn't survive without their pay of rations flour, jam, tea and maybe sugar. They completely forgot that these were desert people who knew how to live off the land when a white man would have died out there. They waited out the Liberal [think Tory] Govt. & Gough Whitlam came to power as the first Labor [Left] Leader since 1949. Gough's Govt also introduced Universal Health Care, reforms to how women, Aboriginals and migrants were treated, as well as the abolition of University fees, the death penalty and conscription. A lot of social change in a few years - but all of it was a long time coming and evened the playing field for many Australians, although prejudice can't be killed off that quickly. Our Country is better off for all that - but the fight for Aboriginal rights and parity continues to this day .... sigh.
Gits, you made me blub - wasn't expecting that. Vincent Lingiari was a bit of a hero of mine growing up & I was a tad obsessed with Gurindji Blues which my Dad got when I was little kid. Gurindji Blues, sung by the late great Galarrwuy Yunupingu is well worth you exploring, and there is a Yothu Yindi connection too.
Australians all get along very well. When any group gets wound up about an issue, the rest of us just shrug our shoulders and say, good luck to them! Together, we do not like authority!
Glad to see/hear the acknowledgement at the beginning. The Aussie indigenous people, don't ever speak the name of their deceased for fear of keeping them trapped in this world. Same for displaying pictures. This song is very much in the hearts of all Aussies who've heard it. Very disgusting the treatment of the original people of this land, the thought still makes me cringe.😢 Definitely goosebumps inducing song 💗 Great job Chris! 😘
Amazing Song Writing with the best of Story telling and an Epic message... thanks Thamesmen...thanks Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody. and Yes..... You've now also stumbled across Missy Higgins who is another brilliant Aussie Songwriter and Live Performer.
Love this version, great Aussies joined together in one voice with a powerful message . Still more work to do. An old workmate of mine (Gareth Liddiard) was one of the people on stage that night. Check him out with his old band doing another of Kev Carmody's songs - The Drones - River of Tears (Live)
Hi! The first singer is Claire Bowditch, followed by Missy Higgins and finally Dan Sultan. It’s worth checking out his duet with Ella Hooper singing “I get by with a little from my friends” for the 100th Episode of Rockwiz, SBS Television. (2008). BTW I’ve subscribed to Thamesmen for a while - good to see you back on my feed. 👏🏽👏🏽🎶🎶🎶
Love your work guys, for this and generally. Lord Vestey only died a few years ago, and was a serious player. He was Master of the Queen's Horse. What a quiet hero Vincent must have been to stand up to someone like that, and what a great song to capture the story. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Vestey,_3rd_Baron_Vestey
I saw members of The Drones in the massed choir at the end. Now there’s a band worth checking out. Gareth Liddiard’s voice isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But you know he means it.
Fantastic performance. I hadn't seen that before, it was great. Loved the fact that Whitlam gets some credit there for being a decent and principled man, along with the whole story, that I'm not really aware of. Will have to look up the story now.
Loved this reaction! Love this song! I know you’ve got some great Missy Higgins recommendations from the comments already but I’ll throw in another one for you, she did a version of a song that Tim Minchin wrote for his tv show upright, I think you’d both love it. Carry You - Missy Higgins
Thank you guys for this one, love it so much, and thanks Chris for choosing this performance, I've not seen it before but what a vibe! What a magic night that must have been.
This is great. It's actually a mashup of two youtube versions of the song. One is the version with Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody. The other is with a mixture of younger artists. That's all fine except that it misses one key reveal from the version with the younger artists. One of the young artists singing is called Dan Sultan - he's the one singing about Vincent Lingiari "returning in an airplane". In the original youtube video that's been mashed into this, there's a key lyric which is missing from this mashup. He say's, regarding Gough Whitlam (the "tall stranger", actually the 6 foot five Labor Pime Minister), pouring the sand through Vincent Lingiari's fingers, "through my grandfather's fingers poured a handful of sand". The reason is simply that Dan Sultan is the grandson of Vincent Lingiari. I would, by the way, recommend this wonderful song by Dan Sultan: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-64uRvg86uXU.html
Hi Robert, this isn't a mashup, this performance was from a Kev Carmody tribute, the DVD is called Can't Buy My Soul, the performance you're thinking of from a Triple J Paul Kelly tribute, they both had Missy Higgins and Dan Sultan. Dan is indeed a direct descendant of Vincent, but uses grandfather in the lyrics, because great, great grandfather doesn't quite fit!
Missy Higgins is a great song writer too, the female Paul Kelly really, sings Aussie style and maintains the accent. I went to this in Brisbane, so good.😊
Must be some mist in the air - my eyelashes are a bit damp. Great work lads and great choice Chris. I'd love to see you guys do an indigenous Australians week - so much talent! Thanks all
Someone mentioned the song 'Bradman' by P.K and the likelihood it won't feature in this weeks collection. I agree it will be overlooked, but hopefully in the "P.K Week 2" which I'm sure will happen. I assume The Thamesmen will be aware of Don Bradman, the greatest Cricketer to ever play the game, but the message within the song about what he meant to Australians, particularly during the depression years is vital to the national psyche. As the line in the song goes "Fathers took their sons 'cause fortune used to lie in the palm of his hand."
Missy Higgins is also an awesome songwriter. Has won a few ARIA Awards for her first album The Sound Of White. She is my favourite female artist and I’ve seen her a few times in concert. Scar was her first hit song.
@@TheThamesmen Appreciation is legal tender all souls enjoy... Not only are you boys talented men... You are good men... Appreciating music from all 4 corners of the globe... Respect.
@@TheThamesmen Our words have power… Imagine you are standing in your kitchen holding a lemon that you have just taken from the refrigerator. It feels cold in your hand. Look at the outside of it, its yellow skin. It is a waxy yellow, and the skin comes to small green points at the two ends. Squeeze it a little and feel its firmness and its weight. Now raise the lemon to your nose and smell it. Nothing smells quite like a lemon does it? Now cut the lemon in half and smell it. The odour is stronger. Now bite deeply into the lemon and let the juice swirl around in your mouth. Nothing tastes like a lemon either, does it? At this point, if you have used your imagination well, your mouth will be watering. Consider the implications of this. Words, mere words, affected your salivary glands. The words did not even reflect reality, but something you imagined. When you read those words about the lemon you were telling your brain you had a lemon, though you did not mean it. Your brain took it seriously and said to your salivary glands, “I’am biting a lemon. Hurry wash it away.” The glands obeyed. Most of us think the words we use reflect meanings and that what they mean can be good or bad, true or false, powerful or weak. True, but that is only half of it. WORDS NOT ONLY REFLECT REALITY, THEY CREATE REALITY… like the flow of saliva. The brain is no subtle interpreter of our intentions - it receives information and stores it, and is in charge of our bodies.
Australia has Paul Kelly. The US has Dylan Canada has Neil Yonge Stomping Tom Collins. Buffie St. Marie and top that with Gordon Lightfoot. Ever country has their Trubadors too many to name. We need more to keep this music alive. Arlo Guthrie and his dad Woody Judy Collins. We need do what’s needed to keep these artists and their message alive. Well done Maybe this board shout bring together a musician or two to keep them at the front of the line working to fight injustice Neil Yonge OHIO to keep the message alive.
Kev Carmody is a national treasure. Check out his song Droving Woman for example. There's a stunning version of that song by Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins and Glen Richards from this same show. It's a brilliant, sad and moving song.
Paul is a legend lve been listening to for his whole career, same also to kev carmody. Got all of keys cds and he is a absolutely brillant story teller for his people..not very well know outside of the true lovers of australian music and people who love social justice type music, kev has been called the oz bob dylan but kev is a more legitimate true Australian history story teller..kev sings about the past and the present. More real talent in one finger than any Australian singing TV talent show winner.
Thankyou Chris, and everyone involved, for including the warning that shows respect for people's culture. I can't watch this without a tear in my eye, it is such a good, positive, and hopeful telling of a powerful story about one of the great successes of determination and tirelessness in the ongoing struggle for rights and recognition by the indigenous owners of the country I live in. It's not a Paul Kelly song but it would've been great if you had been able to include the following song as a bonus, it was written in 1969 when the success of the 'walk off' was as yet unknown. It is much less celebratory and more fiercely defiant of the then status quo. It provides a strong contextual background for the Carmody-Kelly song, and it also contains the names, voices, and performances of deceased people... including Vincent Lingiari speaking in language. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-afcVpLbDaVs.html
Such a wonderful song, so powerful, a wonderful performance. It’s such an important song, it lets the wonderful Native people of our land, that not all white fellas think that’s what has been done was not right or good. Still a long way to go. But this mess😂age is good. And yeah leaky eyes
Love this and also from the same concert The Drones performing River of Tears will send shivers down your spine. Song about the police shooting death of a man wrongly identified. Stormed his house, broke in and shot him in his bed. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dbkDDSM2Gz4.htmlsi=3XZRJTHNSBK0xvEg
I really hear a heavy Bob Dylan influence on this, from the chord structure being similar to The Lonesome Death of Hattie Caroll, to the way the lyrics flow through the verses. That said, it maintains amazing originality of it's own in the way it's delivered and the subject matter which focuses the direction.
You're spot on Brian, Paul describes it as having its roots in that very song. He's also fond of the saying, musicians borrow, good musicians steal and make the thing their own.
I,m sure most Australians would happily hand back land if we had ANY power. All of N.T. to start. I just found out Papua New Guinea was joined to Australia . Imagine doing this to a tribal area today...pity stealing land was so common.
George try listening to Droving Woman. I think it is Kev's great salute to Australia. It's not really said but I think the inference is that the drover's wife is Aboriginal and the drover is white.
Boys, you need to also check out "If I could Start Today Again" - best version here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QNdYj_j9xmU.html Another little gem by Paul Kelly, but performed by Jimmy Little. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ll5uDY_YVds.html
It's such a powerful song, and so great to hear Kev sing it. Iirc, this was for Kev's farewell concert. Personally Claire Bowditch (first female singer) completely overdid it, but the others were great. Love Dan's subtle change to MY people - he's actually Gurindji, the Aboriginal people the song is about. There is, imo, a much better version, performed by just Kev and Paul at the memorial service for Gough Whitlam, the "Tall Stranger" mentioned in the song. He was the Prime Minister at the time, who handed the land over to the Gurindji by symbolically pouring sand through Vincent's fingers. Here is that performance: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dAONlfoNVuY.html
I did strongly consider this one, but in the end thought the onstage revelry at the end was much better to watch than the understandably quiet response from the funeral.
Obviously the songwriters/artists of this song deserve all props and credit but this version below is heaps better The Waifs and John Butler Trio ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-twJL6gugDkU.htmlsi=gTMg0F0AwCcX0s5d
Make no mistake, the Aboriginal industry has well and truly been compensated. Their culture is such that nepotism among the 'favoured' members if their tribes prevents the millions from being equally shared. They have been handed native title all around the country, including up on the Sunshine Coast in the last few days. It's gets to a point that it is up to them to stand on their own two feet, and where I live there are plenty of Aboriginal people who do exactly that...but the Marxist intellectuals among their ranks are deliberately holding them back for their own purposes. We voted no last year, for good reason. The smell of Marxism has its own peculiar and murderous stench.
They are picking some of the worst versions for you to listen to. Don’t get me wrong I usually love Claire and Missy but they over sing this. Other than Paul’s version (can it be called a cover if he co wrote it) the best cover was from Sara Storer and Archie Roach who do a fantastically understated version that lets the story take centre stage. Ziggi Ramo also does a great modernised cover ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2hGeDj-V1c0.html
This is my favourite I stopped watching when you said it was the all star version.... The original is much better as a first listen.... Very disappointing.... It is good to include all the indigenous and other music stars but I really don't like this version....
The "Tall Stranger" was Gough Whitlam, the 21st Prime Minister and Australian Labor Party leader who gave the indigenous their land rights, and then Kevin Rudd from Labor gave an "Apology to the Stolen Generation".. (basically opposed/boycotted by most of the Right Wing Pollies at the time)
He also signed us on to the UN's Lima declaration in 1975 which forced millions of manufacturing jobs overseas which made China rich and a superpower. You dont seem to see the full picture mate.
In 1973 Gough Whitlam also signed the entire country up to UNIDROIT. THE-TREATY-OF-ROME, meaning the mineral and energy wealth of this land (Tetra Australis) is administered in Rome (the State). Which is why in 1975 he could 'pour the handful of sand' Not to take anything away from the song but Gough Whitlam was not great, it was all symbolism. For anyone that cares Australia is, in a geographical sense, is Norfolk Island.
