| Larry Schwartz |
| “I see the sky is turning grey this afternoon/The local football crowd has gone home defeated once again/Good job I don’t hitch my dreams to fine weather/For it’ll be raining, it’ll be raining here soon.” – `Melbourne Town’ by Neil Murray. AS if on cue, the skies are opaque, masking intentions of rain or shine. We stroll beside the Yarra, talking about a new song, a statement of commitment to a city that has endured harsh times. He sings of sunny skies elsewhere, a million destinations that money can buy or sell. “But I’ll have rain/ I’ll have rain on my shoes please/ win or lose/ rain on my shoes/ In Melbourne town/ Right here in Melbourne town/ Good old Melbourne town.” Neil Murray has just released a new album that is as strong as either of his two previous solo recordings or the two with the Papunya-based Warumpi Band he founded in the 1980s. At 39, there is a maturity to his vision. “The weather is neither good nor bad,” he says of the Melbourne song. “It just is. “That song is about making a stand. Even though it might appear on the surface to be depressing. You’re down on your luck, your team’s been beaten, you’re not sure where you’re heading in your life. Everyone’s leaving Victoria. Bugger it. This is where I am.” After years in Sydney and the Northern Territory, the singer- songwriter whose gift for narrative has earned comparisons with the likes of Paul Kelly, Archie Roach and Michael Thomas, returned to Melbourne in March, 1994, then moved out to Lake Bolac, in the western district, near the farm where he was raised. “I kind of completed a circle,” he says. “Locals who remembered me, shake their heads and say, `We never thought you’d come back here. We thought the mad world had taken you for good’.” Way out in the mad world, we sit in a boardroom at EMI’s South Melbourne offices. The record company that is distributing his album for ABC Music has a massive cover of the Beatles `Sergeant Pepper’ album on one wall. In rugged contrast to the stylised popsters, the lean, side-burned Murray has on the same worn leather jacket, jeans and plaid shirt that is his garb on the cover of the new album, `Dust’. It has been released as part of the ABC Songwriter series that includes veteran songster Broderick Smith. “User friendly, ” he says of the new album, which should reach out to a bigger audience than previous works without loss of artistic integrity. Archie Roach is among a clutch of musician friends featured. Others include David Bridie, of Not Drowning Waving, Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie, Sally Dastey and Amy Saunders of Tiddas, and Christine Anu. `Island Home’, one of three songs he had written for Anu’s debut album, was named 1995 song of the year by the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA). He says it brought him “a bit of attention” and inquiries by other artists interested in having him write songs for them. An earlier version of `Tjapwurrung Country’, a track on the new album, can be heard on a recent compilation from the Alice Springs-based Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA). “At that stage, I didn’t know if I would ever get an album out. So I let them have it.” He re-recorded it with Roach singing the chorus. Each of his three solo albums has been on a different label. `Calm and Crystal Clear’ (1989) was put out by Festival, `These Hands’ (1993) on Mushroom’s Aurora label. “I’m sick of wasting time,” he says. “Time is very precious. So is energy. If a record company doesn’t want to do an album with me, then I want out . . . Aurora didn’t want to do another album. So fine. Let me go.” He had recorded a rough mix before he heard about the ABC series. It enabled him to remix `Dust’ in a good studio and polish the rough edges. “Kurrunpatju Yungu,” he sings on another song. It means “give your spirit”, in the Luritja language spoken at Papunya and was suggested by a Warumpi bandmate. “I’m conversant with (Luritja). It takes about a year of hearing the sounds before you can speak it. You have to keep using it, otherwise it just slips away.” Murray is forthright in his views. “I’m expressing a prayer, ” he says of `Native Born’, the last of 13 tracks. “A heartfelt prayer to all those who might be moved by this song. We are squandering this country at our peril and I am saying, `Hang on. We are its caretakers’.” “I would not desecrate your sacred lands/” he sings. “I would not plunder upon your shores/ I would not foul your precious waters/ For I am your native born . . .” MURRAY toured Europe with the Warumpi Band last year and it put out an album on CAAMA. Despite the impact of two strong albums here – `Big Names, No Blankets’ (1985) and `Go Bush’ (1987), European audiences knew little about the band. They went over well in Germany. In France, however, audiences seemed to be confused. Many had come to shows expecting a tribal sound. “They are still coming to terms with the fact that Aboriginal people can play whatever they damn like . . . We play rock ‘n’ roll and that’s it.” In his lengthy association with Warumpi, Murray has encountered both acceptance and hostility from black Australians. “I struck racism against me but mostly in the cities and only from the most militant quarters . . . They wanted to see me as the one who was exploiting the other fellows at the time, which was unfair.” In Papunya, people had no such misgivings. “Old people were really thrilled to see a white person up there singing with Aborigines in language.” There, he was a novelty. “Because you’re the only white fellow and you’re playing in the communities, you get shown off as being the token gubba. You feel like you’re on parade. It makes you feel good but it’s a little bit daunting as well.” He has recounted his experiences in a semi-autobiographical novel, `Sing for My Countryman’. He had not intended to form a band. “These fellows that could play guitar started coming over to my place after work and we’d sit around and jam,” he says. “And the other young fellows who were on the dole with nothing to do would come around, hang out, and we’d talk. `We’ll get money. We’ll get amplifiers. We’ll get this. We’ll get that.’ “It was an adventure. I was drawn out there. I wanted to spend time with Aboriginal people. I was convinced somehow that they held the secret to everything. Probably naively and romantically. That there was something of great import that I had to get from them. That’s what drove me out there. “But you suffer disillusionment because conditions are very harsh and things aren’t as you expected. You carry a lot of expectation into a place like that. But if you remain positive and you persevere, you develop relationships. They are tenuous at first but when you do have them . . . they are lifelong.” Murray has a book of poems in the works. A spoken poem, `Great Redeeming Actions’, is featured on the new single, `The Bliss’. He reads poetry at his gigs but only the most extroverted material. He is satisfied with the new album. He claims it is more cohesive than the earlier albums. Even if each featured strong individual songs, `Dust’ “hangs together better than anything I’ve done”, he says. “To quote Ed Kuepper, I think I’m hitting it more than missing it these days. I really know what I’m doing these days.” THE SUNDAY AGE, 16-Jun-1996 |
Larry Schwartz Writer 