Why create this site?
I was only a child when the Australian folk-rock band Redgum was active in the 1970s and 1980s, but its music is something that I have returned to over and over again, and I think that it deserves to be better known. While their 1983 #1 hit song about the Vietnam war "I Was Only 19" has remained somewhat in the public memory, the rest of Redgum's body of work has largely faded into obscurity. As a result the band has always been under-represented online, and I hope that this lyrics archive, ,with links to playable versions of the songs where possible, will help redress the imbalance a little bit. As for why this long gone-band should be remembered, I can't put it any better than Bob Nebe of That Striped Sunlight Sound did on his review of the band's first album:
"When I meet people who think music is just music, I know that they never have found something in music like when I found Redgum. This effect this band had on me when I discovered them just after finishing high school was electric. They led me into folk music and into a political understanding, which in turn led me into many different places. Their do-it-yourself type music transcended the punk ethos which also was happening round the same time. When I formed a band at 18/19 Redgum songs featured strongly, they fitted in with everything else, they had their finger on the pulse of this nation like no other."
As someone who has been living outside of Australia for some years, Redgum's always makes me feel like I am at home again. When I listen to the tale of the "Diamantina Drover" looking back on life, hear the tough optimism of "Long Run", or the heart-breaking beauty of "Working Girls" it makes me glad to be an Australian. Not in a jingoistic, flagwaving, "oi oi oi" type of way, but in the sense that I think the decency and humanity so well expressed by Redgum reflects some of the best of what Australia has to offer. Decades on, much of what they sang about still rings true, and I think that it always will.
"When I meet people who think music is just music, I know that they never have found something in music like when I found Redgum. This effect this band had on me when I discovered them just after finishing high school was electric. They led me into folk music and into a political understanding, which in turn led me into many different places. Their do-it-yourself type music transcended the punk ethos which also was happening round the same time. When I formed a band at 18/19 Redgum songs featured strongly, they fitted in with everything else, they had their finger on the pulse of this nation like no other."
As someone who has been living outside of Australia for some years, Redgum's always makes me feel like I am at home again. When I listen to the tale of the "Diamantina Drover" looking back on life, hear the tough optimism of "Long Run", or the heart-breaking beauty of "Working Girls" it makes me glad to be an Australian. Not in a jingoistic, flagwaving, "oi oi oi" type of way, but in the sense that I think the decency and humanity so well expressed by Redgum reflects some of the best of what Australia has to offer. Decades on, much of what they sang about still rings true, and I think that it always will.