When I walked off-stage, I just grabbed and give him a hug. "They really appreciated the story continuing to be told in different ways," Ross says.Ĭarmody - who was at the Helpmann Awards that night to receive a lifetime achievement award - was staggered by the cover. When Fielding and Ross sought permission from Mr Lingiari's family to use his voice, they were enthusiastic about the idea. In the second half of the song, Fielding sings in Yankunytjatjara, a seamless transition he describes as a kind of "magic trick". Their rendition features the echoing voice of Mr Lingiari, saying, "That land belongs to me". Young ones get it now."Īnd indeed, an ever-growing number of artists have covered the song.Įlectric Fields - an electro duo comprised of vocalist Zaachariaha Fielding from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands and Adelaide producer Michael Ross - first performed their version at the Helpmann Awards in 2019. In the 1960s, led by Gurindji man Mr Lingiari, 200 Aboriginal workers – including Gurindji, Ngarinman, Bilinara, Warlpiri and Mudbara workers – walked off Wave Hill Station, a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory owned by international food company Vestey Brothers. The story of the Gurindji Walk-Off at Wave Hill Station entered Carmody's mind that night at the campfire with Kelly.
An eight-year-long story of power and pride That story struck Carmody almost immediately. "He said he'd like to come up and meet me … we picked him up in an old troop-carrying Land Rover, and we went and camped at a place called Wivenhoe Dam," Carmody recalls.Īround the campfire that night, Carmody plucked at his banjo and mandolin while Kelly played the guitar.Ī chord progression started to come together, and although Carmody didn't think it was particularly exciting, he says the pair recognised it would be "a great little sound to put a story to".
You could hear the cows breathing, idle horses moving with the bells and the hobbles on.Ĭarmody remembers Kelly getting in touch with him following the release of his 1988 album, Pillars of Society. " be listening to this music under the majesty and enormity of the Milky Way and this whole universe," he tells ABC RN. Lying around the campfire with his family, Carmody would listen to symphonies by composers like Beethoven, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Bach and Mozart. It was in those early days - before he was forcibly removed from his family at the age of 10 - that Carmody's eyes were first opened to music, thanks to a battery wireless radio. Discover more amazing stories by ABC Indigenous. This year's NAIDOC Week theme is For Our Elders. Gather round people, I'll tell you a storyīorn in 1946, Kev Carmody is a Lama Lama and Bundjalung man who grew up in the Darling Downs area of Queensland, where his parents worked on cattle stations. This is the journey of what started off as a casually recorded folk song and has become what Carmody calls "a kind of cultural love song" and a foundational entry in the Australian songbook: From Little Things Big Things Grow. In 2021, singer and rapper Ziggy Ramo climbs the sails of the Sydney Opera House and performs, backlit by the sunrise. In 2003, on the asphalt quadrangle of Zillmere State School in Brisbane, a class of public school kids sing and dance their way across the handball courts. In 1988, around a campfire at Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland, Kev Carmody plucks out some chords while Paul Kelly toys with a lyric he's had in his head. WARNING: This story contains the images and names of Indigenous people who have died.
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