I have been lucky enough to spend my Easter long weekend at Bryon Bay Bluesfest. Sweating and dancing in a humid tent with great music and mud and people you love – there can’t be anything else better in the world.
The festival got me thinking about my favourite childhood songs. Australian folk songs like Black Velvet Band and Wild Colonial Boy and later a copy of Burl Ives singing Scarlet Ribbons that my cousin gave me. Surprise, surprise they are all songs that are stories.
Everyone has at least one favourite song that tells a story – beginning, middle and end.
I saw Paul Kelly at Bluesfest – a songwriter who appreciates telling a good story in a song. He has so many. From Little Things Big Things Grow he co-wrote with Kev Carmody, another great story teller and song writer, at campgrounds just down the road from where I live.
It is a big story. A story that defines Australia. Tragic and triumphant. I ALWAYS need tissues when I listen to it.
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