Ecopella – Green Footprints

Other songwriters from within our ranks continue this theme: Dallas De Brabander, inspired by the First Nations’ respect for country and by the beauty of the Gandangarra bushland she lives in, asks us to Listen Deep To The Land; Sue Gee always found Wolli Creek to be a special place and honours the people who fought, and still fight, the ongoing battle to protect it from ugly polluting motorways. Other places honoured by our friends include Newell Highway, in John Warner’s adaptation of an old hymn tune, and Australia’s forests and woodlands in Wendy Joseph’s Of Trees And Humankind.

From the land to the sea now. Kaye Osborn, formerly of our alto section, lets us hear of frightful damage to our planet’s oceans in a Whisper On The Waves. Englishman Andy Barnes long ago envisaged the brutal extinction of the Last Leviathan, and we keep singing his poignant lament so as to keep alive the international whaling ban that prevents it from coming true.

Before we return to exclusively Australian material, I’ve borrowed Cole Porter’s famous tune to put out a planet-wide warning that if we don’t exert ourselves to protect the planet then we may see that Everything Goes. Non-Australian listeners should be aware that our Liberals, referenced in the last verse, are a party of plutocratic conservatives, not to be confused with US American liberalism.

The stark contrasts, moral and otherwise, involved in Arctic oil drilling gave Sydney songwriter Brian Jonathon his inspiration for Oil On Snow. I’m glad he obliged us with an uplifting end to the song!

Our dear friend and former colleague Christina Mimmocchi was having a bad week and gave herself – and now quite a few Sydney choirs – some healing comfort with Let There Be Peace. In the peaceful surrounds of one of our favourite folk festivals, far from the curse of unsustainable consumerism we met Melbourne songwriter Annie Kennedy and were moved by her message to leave behind Unnecessary Things.

People who know of the threatened environmental catastrophe facing all living things will also know Fear. Ecopella member Paul Spencer usually deals with it with merry wit and satire (see either of our previous albums) but here has written profoundly serious music that passes from sombre solitary darkness into the warm light of friendship. In that same benign radiance we close this album with two songs of mine: Earthly Love is a secular hymn to the powerful bond uniting activists around the planet, whether known to each other or not; while Blue And Emerald takes that co-operative message noisily out into the street to celebrate the integrity of our movement’s commitment to our common purpose.