Goanna’s Shane Howard performing in the Tarkine Rainforest. Photo: TWITTER
Shane Howard breathes in the air of forest, mountain and desert. His eyes drink in the landscape of soul and society. He exhales in song, and unlike many artists who hold their work close, song can also morph into a call for action.
He acts outside the clef of music when the passion and, at times, grievance, demands.
From the heart of this country, to the shores of the southwest coast of Victoria, and across to Tasmania, Howard has soaked up the past and present and given back to the world his sense of what this continent and its people mean to him. It’s a voice shaded in harmonies and dissonance. You could call it alchemy, for the composition of words and music can be both discipline and mysterious.
He stood in the shadow of Uluru, a young man, and history and the present streaked across the sky, and a song was born. A song that became emblematic of the plight of First Nations people. A song that reached into the national consciousness, and settled there. That song was ‘Solid Rock‘.
His life and career became a river, different currents feeding into it, such as immersion in First Nations culture and history. Goanna would issue a single called ‘Sorry‘ in 1998, and perform it the day of release of the Bringing Them Home report. There would be a gathering of friendships and associations with Indigenous artists, collaborations and concerts.
And then there would be Tasmania. The wild landscape taken hostage by the ring of coin. In 1983, a battle was raging over the proposed damming of the Franklin and Gordon rivers. The year before the area had been declared by UNESCO a world heritage site. Howard wrote ‘Let the Franklin Flow‘, he joined the pickets, coin from the song went to the Tasmanian Wilderness Society’s fight to save the rivers. In July the High Court ruled on a Tasmanian government motion to it that the Hawke government couldn’t butt into its affairs. The court ruled it could. The Franklin still flows.
And now Howard is back in Tasmania, this time to help save the Tarkine Rainforest in the north-west. And of course, there is a song. ‘Takayna’ is released on Saturday. It is Goanna’s first song of new material to be released in 25 years. And comes on the day of the High Court decision being delivered.
Takayna is the local palawa Aboriginal word for Tarkine. The song was recorded last year during a concert at Hamer Hall in Melbourne.
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The Chinese mining giant MMG has operated a copper, zinc and lead mine in the Tarkine region for years, but wants to construct a second tailings dam that protesters, such as the Bob Brown Foundation, say will be a threat to the forest.
Howard has said recently that “takayna/Tarkine is under threat from clear-felling and mining. We are honour bound to do better, for country, for all the creatures that depend on those forests, including ourselves and future generations.”
The song was a “hymn to the natural world, to takayna/Tarkine and the palawa peoples’ long custodianship of that country.”
“We all understand the need for jobs but there are more responsible ways of dealing with ‘tailings’ from a mine than to build a 48-metre high dam of toxic acid right beside a magnificent river in pristine forest. It defies logic really. The region is too environmentally sensitive. World’s best practice should be at the heart of what is of greatest value to Tasmania in the long run. There are alternatives.”
Having been with the protesters a couple of years ago, three things arose in him: admiration for their determination; awe in what they sought to defend; and a song.
“The song grew out of that experience. I was deeply moved by the awe-inspiring majesty of the forest and the dedication of those ‘voices crying in the wilderness’, young and old, who were defending that country. These defenders of nature are the true heroes of the 21st century. They deserve our admiration and support,” Howard said.
The release of this single by Goanna is a link in a chain of musical history. Howard and Goanna have recently completed a nationwide tour, and their history and music has been resurrected and restored online. Howard became an archivist to do it. He told me a couple of years ago that “I learnt to forgive my young self and the other Goannas, who set out with great enthusiasm and idealism. It nearly destroyed us, but this far down the track, I think we can be proud of the legacy.”
And playing alongside the legacy are new notes, such as ‘Takayna’. He also said back then: “Aboriginal Australia and growing older made me realise time’s elastic. It stretches and bends. When you set out as a songwriter and wade into the ocean of song, it’s a big blank canvas, full of endless possibilities.”
May the river never run dry. There’s always something worth fighting for.
Shane Howard plays the Paragon Theatre in Queenstown, Tasmania, on July 1.
