I Am Not The Beatles

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

As opening lines go, ‘Mum and Dad and Danny saw the passing out parade at Puckapunyal’ isn’t exactly the catchiest.

But then this isn’t trying to be the catchiest song in the world, deciding instead to make a pretty decent stab at being The Most Bloody Serious. Now I can see no reason why, like the still surprisingly muscular Two Tribes before it, a song about the futility of war can’t be both stupidly catchy and brilliantly serious - but any possibility of this occurring is quickly blown out of the water like an unlucky soldier in an ambush, thanks to the vocalist having the unnerving bad habit of repeatedly indulging in Very Oversincere Talky Bits.

I must point out that I have nothing against Very Oversincere Talky Bits per se - the intro of It’s Raining Men where The Weather Girls explain what unlikely but really rather spectacular news they have to impart is a particularly fine example - but with Redgum it is a little disconcerting to hear the singer successfully plaster a melody onto that unnecessarily overcomplicated first line, only to then apparently give up searching for any other discernible tune to go with it and start Oversincerely Talking by the second line of the entire song.

Indeed, such is the devastating non-impact of this Singy then Talky situation, if you are vaguely distracted when the song begins you would be forgiven for absentmindedly daydreaming a particularly mellow DFS radio advert over the top of it :

‘ (singy) Mum and Dad and Danny went to DFS today to buy a sofa
(talky) Sale now on… open 9 ’til 6…’

What’s The Funniest Bit ?

When he sings, “Then someone yelled out ‘Contact’ … and the bloke behind me swore” as if swearing in a war zone with the constant threat of a pointless and painful death forever surrounding you in the stinking filth of your existence is kind of rare, and this instance of it is therefore worth highlighting. One can only assume that each time someone yelled out ‘Contact’ previously, the bloke behind him just emitted a slightly camp “Oh piddly twiddley widdlesticks.”

Of Which Lyric Is He Most Proud ?

He’s pretty bloody proud of all of it - although you get the feeling that when he wrote the line “Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon”, he probably had to go for a quick lie down on the sofa with some particularly strokable cats - so overcome was he by the literary juxtapositional excitement of it all.

Unfortunately he still manages to cock this bit up though by throwing in yet another Oversincere Talky Bit immediately after it - mumbling ‘He was going home in June…’ in a voice so quiet and deadpan it sounds like he is in the corner of a pub with his mates, and this is the whispered offensively filthy punchline to the dirtiest joke in the world.

Tell Me About The Redgum Tree

The Redgum is a eucalyptus tree prevalent in Australia and famous for it’s honey. Interestingly, the eucalyptus species used to have petals coyly covering the parts of it that required pollination - but then dispensed with them ages ago in the name of evolution and now relies purely on it’s uncovered colourful sex organs alone to attract bees to it. Despite this now rather blatant sex show, the name ‘eucalyptus’ derives from the latin for ‘well covered’ - which means that when this name was conceived it either still had petals dangling rather enticingly over it’s privates, which seems a bit unlikely, or somehow people knew that it definitely used to.

Just as interestingly, the name of the eminently shaggable but sadly mythological greek nymph Calypso has exactly the same derivation (in this case ‘I Will Conceal’) and she thus has the same heady mix of beauty, sexuality and concealment. The difference here though is that Calypso had to cover up her sex organs for the sole reason that she was a woman and if she didn’t, the myth rather misogynistically seems to suggest, she would be asking for it - the dirty minx.

Anyway, these aforementioned Red Gum tree sex organs certainly are a very nice colour and the wood therefore makes some very sexy furniture.

Tell Me About The Redgum Song

To understand it’s full argument we must now visit another myth - not of Calypso but of The ANZAC. Essentially, in 1914 as part of the first world war, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) were sent on a mission to Gallipoli. Unfortunately it all went utterly wrong and ended in defeat. It is widely acknowledged though that this defeat was a pivotal moment in Australian history giving rise to the first feelings of true independent nationhood.

From here the ANZAC myth grew to become an aspirational masculine stereotype for Australian men as whole - involving an extreme masculine physical beauty, nobility of bearing and a bonding with each other known rather Neighboursly as ‘mateship’.

http://www.awm.gov.au/dawn/empire/index.asp

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/stories/s281903.htm

So important was this shift in Australian culture, the landing date of the Gallipoli mission is celebrated each year with the laying of wreaths, the playing of the last post and - most importantly of course - everyone gets the day off :

http://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac/anzac_tradition.htm

Meanwhile, what does Turkey do when all this is happening on the same day ? They do what any sensible country who won the actual battle would do, and have a nice game of tennis instead :

http://www.anzaclegendscup.com/

‘I Was Only 19′ blames a desire by Australian men to believe the ANZAC myth as the reason why people sign up to the army all these years later, including in this instance the Vietnam war, claiming it mythologises the war process as far away as possible from the grim reality of actually doing unproductive things like getting your legs blown off or shooting other people in the head.

It is based on the true story of the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam as told to John Schumann (the singer and lyricist) by his brother-in-law, Mick Storen. Pretty much every detail of the lyrics are factually correct from the mention of Puckapanyal and Vung Tau, to the Grand Hotel where soldiers used to unwind of an evening before popping out to shoot a few more people on the following day.

There are photos of the Nui Dat battle taken by somebody who presumably really should have been shooting people instead, here.

Incidentally, it seems I may the only person who finds that line about ‘contact’ and somebody uncharacteristically swearing vaguely amusing - as this very quote is included on a memorial to all the Australians who died at the Battle Of Long Tan on a Wall Of Words in Canberra :

http://www.vietvet.org/aussimem.htm

Does That Make You Feel Slightly Guilty ?

Possibly, but it seems I will never feel as guilty as a chap called Dr Richard Gatling presumably did. He invented the world’s first multi barrel machine gun in 1861 - and his design is still the basis of all machine guns used today.

Why would Richard feel so guilty ? Because the only reason this peace loving baptist invented it in the first place was because he was absolutely convinced people would be so utterly repelled by the carnage and horror his weapon would create, war would become unthinkable and peace on earth would inevitably reign.

Ooops.

Tell Me About The Redgum Band

John Schumann, Michael Atkinson and Verity Truman met on a Politics and Art course in 1975 in Adelaide and were asked by their tutor to contribute to a music project. So incredibly amazed were they all by the genius outcome, the band was born.

It may not surprise you to learn they were all active members of the anti-war movement, and their politicised brand of folk went on to become Very Seriously successful in their native Australia - this song was a number 1 there - until John left the same year this song was released and it disbanded soon afterwards.

http://www.geocities.com/redgum_music/

John initally tried his hand at politics but then went onto become Very Seriously revered as a solo artist, and is about to release an album of Australian songs “either directly or indirectly related to Australian’s at war” with a bloke from Midnight Oil :

http://www.schumann.com.au/john/news.html

Verity now works in local government using a mystery new married name so is currently untraceable, whilst Michael writes music for film and television. If you are a Very Serious Redgum Fan and therefore demand a much more in depth Very Serious Redgum Update, click here.

Finally, what did John Very Seriously describe as “… just not very useful; in fact it’s counterproductive in the final analysis” ?

Yep… INXS.

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : This has a different B-side to the Australian Big Hit version, and is thus worth slightly more : 2 pounds and 96 pence. It doesn’t, however, spin in the opposite direction which is a shame.

Current Profit : 162 pounds and 29 pence. Want to know how poor old Richard’s machine guns work ? http://science.howstuffworks.com/machine-gun4.htm

Supporting Cast Update : Weather Girls, The ; Midnight Oil; INXS

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.