1. 'We're Standing on Solid Rock'
Song and video from DREAMING AUSTRALIA -
Have you been to Uluru?
Though Australia is no longer a religious country, the trip to Uluru is a kind of pilgrimage that all Australians owe to country in which we are born. It’s like the once in a lifetime hajj to Mecca for those of Muslim faith.
The connection runs deep and wide, the rock inspiring some of our most popular ‘rock’ songs.
The song, ‘Solid Rock’, was originally a celebration of the popular discovery of Aboriginal culture in the 1980s. One can feel the energy of hope and triumph in the original. The song spoke directly to the themes of invasion, Aboriginal land rights, and the Dreamtime. It is also a warning, levelled at the second person: ‘You’re standing on Solid Rock, sacred ground; You’re living on borrowed time…’
Has the call been heard?
It remains prophetic - I, for one, can hear the looming danger; a not yet present dreaming into which the songwriter calls us. Inter-cultural relations are constantly under strain in this country. Can we still relate to the hope of the original?
I love the opening line, ‘Out here nothing changes, not in a hurray, anyway’ — The more things change, the more they stay the same…
The song was written by Shane Howard for his band GOANNA in 1981. They sang it, full throttle, at the national football grand final in Melbourne last year. To me it sounded forced. Forty years later, and the original mood of triumph no longer holds. The rock has been returned but the park is still controlled and managed by the Government. How can this be? Will we ever trust the Aboriginals to manage their own estates?