The pillars of society 
Cruise down the road each day;
They got the economic wherewithall 
We can’t afford to pay 
They got numbered bank accounts 
Their system assures they win 
They exploit the population we on the outside lookin’ in

CHORUS 
Them pillars of society 
Drive us like a tool 
To them that cool

They drive Mercedes Benz and Porsches 
Live Rolls Royce gilt-edged lives 
You can tell the affluent effluent 
By the status symbols that they drive 
When you on the dole queue 
They tell you to your face 
You a bludger on their system 
And a blight on the human race

They grace the social pages 
Always make the news 
At the church on Sunday 
They crowd in the front pews 
There’s a hierachy of dominace 
With the power at the top 
If you think you’ve found the magic key 
You’ll find they’ve changed the locks

Walkin’ down the freeway 
On their dotted line 
We’d like to make decisions 
But they won’t allow the time 
It’s said religion is the opium 
I say the media’s the cocaine 
24 hours of propanganda 
druggin’ my poor brain

They confer titles of status and dominance 
On their progeny and their class 
“sir” – “Your honour” – 
“Your Grace” – “Your Highness” – 
We’re made to polish
And lick their____brass 
But you my friend can be like them 
If you have their million dollar fee 
But you’ll find their system’s designed 
To keep us in line 
And walkin’ on our knees

Gotta brand new brother 
Down on Flagstone Road 
Who sees more to life 
Than bein’ bought and sold 
With acres of trees 
And wildlife crowdin’ his back door

CHORUS 
Like sunshine 
Through the mists of a mountain morn 
Into my insecure basic blue 
When you’re slammed on the floor 
Our of reach of the door
And this woman bends softly 
and whispers to you

Lean on me brother 
Let this sister take your heavy load 
Lean on me brother 
Let this sister take your load

When I get lost and I am tired and worn 
I use his hillside haven to calm my storm 
It’s a better medication 
Than them empty brown bottles of booze

Moonlight peekin’ over the crested hill 
Evenin’ breeze pushin’ at the window sill
There’s the silhoutted shadow 
Of a night owl on the moon

When ya dissillusioned 
Ya hard, when ya cheated you’re shy 
Whats one mans facts 
Is just another mans lies 
You’re constantly searching 
For a thief in a new disguise

He was born in Asia Minor 
A colonized Jewish man 
His father the village carpenter 
Worked wood in his occupied land
He was apprenticed to his father’s trade
His country paid it’s dues 
To the colonial Roman conquerors
He was a working-class Jew

Though conceived three months out of wedlock 
The stigma never stuck
He began a three year public life
But he never made a buck
Because he spoke out against injustice 
Saw that capitalism bled the poor
He attacked self-righteous hypocrites 
And he condemned the lawyers’ law

But they’ve commercialised his birthday now 
The very people he defied
And they’ve sanctified their system
And claim he’s on their side!
But if he appeared tomorrow
He’d still pay the highest cost
Being a ‘radical agitator’ 
They’d still nail him to a cross

You see
He’d stand with the down trodden masses
Identify with the weak and oppressed
He’d condemn the hypocrites in church pews
And the affluent, arrogant West
He’d oppose Stalinist totalitarianism
The exploitation of millions by one
And ‘peace’ through mutual terror
And diplomacy from the barrel of a gun

He’d fight with Joe Hill and Waleca
Mandala and Friere
Try to free the third world’s millions
From hunger and despair
He’d stand with the peasants 
At the pock-marked walls 
They’d haul him in on bail
He’d condemn all forms of apartheid
And he’d rot in their stinking jails.

He’d denounce all dictatorships 
And Mammon’s greed 
And the exploitation of others for gain
He’d oppose the nuclear madness 
And the waging of wars in his name 
He’d mix with prostitutes and sinners
Challenge all to cast the first stone 
A compassionate agitator
One of the greatest the world has known

He’d condemn all corrupt law and order 
Tear man made hierarchies down 
He’d see status and titles as dominance
And the politics of greed he’d hound
He’d fight against 
The leagues of the Ku Klux Klan
And the radical, racist right
One of the greatest humanitarian socialists
Was comrade, 
Jesus Christ.

Fast Willie’s on the corner 
Tryin’ to make a kill
He’s got this inclination
She wants a $50 bill

CHORUS 
Life can be hard trackin’
When yoo’re runnin’ out on a twister rail
I keep hopin’ that that mornin’ wind 
Come blow my blues away

Malcolm’s got a razor and a 
Jack-knife up his leg
He’s a friend of crooked Louis
Who can’t lay straight in bed

Well I work all week for money 
skippin’ meals to get ahead
I find the Federal Taxman 
Come and eats up all my bread

Blind Arnold’s highly anxious
It’s a sad predicament
He’s made it to the pay-loo door 
But found his penny bent

The magistrate is constipated
This ‘aint my lucky day
They slammed me in the prison cell 
And they throwed the key away

Sexy Sandra drives me crazy 
She keeps begging me for more
I see nothin’ through her key-hole
‘cept her old man’s pugnozed 44

I staggers home this evenin’ 
She meets me at the door
With a rollin’ pin and Pinscher dog 
She pounds me to the floor

CHORUS

In 1788 down Sydney Cove 
The first boat-people land 
Said sorry boys our gain’s your loss 
We gonna steal your land 
And if you break our new British laws 
For sure you’re gonna hang 
Or work your life like convicts 
With chains on your neck and hands

CHORUS 
They taught us 
Oh Oh Black woman thou shalt not steal 
Oh Oh Black man thou shalt not steal 
We’re gonna civilize 
Your Black barbaric lives 
And teach you how to kneel 
But your history couldn’t hide 
The genocide 
The hypocrisy to us was real 
’cause your Jesus said 
you’re supposed to give the oppressed 
a better deal 
We say to you yes whiteman thou shalt not steal 
Oh ya our land you’d better heal

Your science and technology Hey you can make a nuclear bomb 
Development has increased the size to 3,000,000 megatons 
But if you think that’s progress 
I suggest your reasoning is unsound 
You shoulda found out long ago 
You best keep it in the ground

Job and me and Jesus sittin’ 
Underneath the Indooroopilly bridge
Watchin’ that blazin’ sun go down 
Behind the tall tree’d mountain ridge 
The land’s our heritage and spirit 
Here the rightful culture’s Black 
and we sittin’ here just wonderin’ 
When we get the land back

You talk of conservation
Keep the forest pristine green 
Yet in 200 years your materialism 
Has stripped the forests clean 
A racist’s a contradiction 
That’s understood by none 
Mostly their left hand hold a bible 
Their right hand holds a gun

Elly wrapped her nineteen years
In a coat from ’41
Had the looks that’d make a grown man sigh
From the Diamantina River country
She crossed the dry mid west
From her childhood schemes and sheltered dreams
She broke the ties

The commercial man made blunt demands
As they travelled south by east
Elly turned into a woman over night
He set her down in the heart of town 
The millionaires retreat
She gazed up at the tall glass and concrete walls
At Main St. Surfers Paradise

CHORUS
If the decks been marked before the deal
You learn to compromise
Or you get to know the cool hand with the dice 
You learn to live off losers, for they make the mistakes twice
You’re living in high society but you’re street wise
Just to survive, just to survive

With those centrefold looks
And bay-blue eyes
Man she stacked them in
All the senators and doctors called her Madam
With her fifteen girls she built a world
A pleasured paradise
On what a man of God would call the wages of sin

CHORUS

A wealthy woman
Drinks with diamond rings 
Twenty stories high 
Gazes out as the sun lifts from the sea
To make it to the top
Elly sacrificed the lot
And found that seven figure sum was far too high a fee

CHORUS

Travellin’ north….beyond that border
Them black clouds is higher than the sky
Travellin’ back in time, right across that borderline 
Thunder lightning come, cloud begin to cry
Storm rain come. cloud begin to cry

Journeyin’ north to the country of my childhood 
That scrub country where we and us was raised
Where the Moonie River’s etched a track through
Every floodgate fence
A track no human construct can ever reverse or erase
Where human constructs are just a passin’ phase

That ragin’ storm beats hard upon that border
Still 200 miles of rainin’ road to go
Steadily the road climbs across that Wallangarra line
The rainin’ darkness encompasses my soul 
These memories are just one curse of growin’ old.

I’ve been moved by the wind upon the waters
And the shadows as the leaves are blown
When that old wind moans
On a weary winter Sunday
Like a friend that keeps on knocking on my home

I’ve been moved by the crying of the newborn
The honey sweetness of the air in spring
I’ve watched the moonlight flood 
Across them sleepy hills and valleys
Heard the sadness in her requiem

I’ve been moved watching nature slowly turning
Through the seasons and the patterns that she brings 
And as the morning star proceeds
The breaking of a new day
You’ll find the black crow is already on the wing

I’ve been moved watching something that’s been suffering
Be it humankind or any living thing
From the fury of the storm 
That old parched ground is reborn
And the deserts blooms’d satisfy a king

I’ve been moved by the tireless sea a churning
And them scarlets of an inland dusk 
When a close friend has died
I turned away and cried
As they laid ‘em down and shovelled in the dust

Fly messenger fly….on the wings above the sky

The wingtip of the albatross, creases the mirrored waters
Between the swells in the vastness of the Great Southern Ocean
In that winded expanse and ice-so-lated chill of the Roaring Forties 
Above the darkened depths, this ancient messenger forever
Wanders the oceans of this Earth

CHORUS 
Through storms and tempests….across aeons of time
In the wilderness and solitude of polar moonshine 
On the wings of the Spirit the Messenger flies
Through the limitless silent infinity of the imagination
Fly messenger fly….on wings above the sky

The messenger roams the realms of the seven seas
Across oceans of human indifference, watching the ecology
Fall and flee before the economic onslaughts
Of the new technological barbarians, who value destructive
Death above the pricelessness of rebirth
And returning relays the message to the saddened ancients
People of this Earth

CHORUS

The breathless beauty in the twilight of each day 
The magic of the midnight autumn moon, in the brilliance of
The Milky Way
The majesty of the Universe beyond all human worth
Through which the Messenger soars suspended in the sacred 
Cathedral of this Earth

Cloudy day, high old wind 
Chill in the air, as twilight moves in
Likelihood the night’ll bring rain
Them old town dogs’ll start their howlin’ again

Chorus
I’m still in love with you
I’m still in love with you
I’m still in love with you

Stare in the mirror, what do I see?
A different person to what you saw in me
Brain needs a splint, mouth tastes like a dump
I’ve been forty years sober, been eight years drunk

CHORUS

I love the beauty of your spirit, my expression is plain
Love your voice, your womanhood, the sound of your name
See you in the wind, the stars, the rain
Can’t seem to dislodge you from inside my brain

CHORUS

Some share secrets, other share shame
Still others are conditioned to layin’ the blame 
Hope our friendship was more that a brief interlude
I’d call you long distance, but I donÕt want to intrude

CHORUS

He came back from the city
I say “cus’ where ya bin?”
He says “Brother I been livin’ on the wire
Lived down in that gutter where the fittest survive
I ploughed through them fields of fire
Had a needle in a vein, that profited the sane
Had a friend with no name who was a liar
Saw the white walls of freedom, never found the black door 
Saw the Devil sing with the Angels in a choir….Sisters….

CHORUS
We’ll take you home to the land we know
Give you that peace of the evening
Give you that moon with the wind on your face 
The rains and the change of each season

I saw people who were trapped
Under the whip of fat cats
Saw people there devoid of their Dreaming
Deep down inside there with so much to hide
Brother you could see in their eyes there’s no meaning
So take me my sisters and welcome me home
So I never again walk alone
Our spirit demands that we die in this land 
And I know now my spirit’s come home

I says, ‘Brother what you see in this land of “Progress”?’
He says, ‘I never felt them four winds a blowin’
Lived with people in chains, the wounded and lame
Heard Messiahs who spoke without knowin’
And them seven seas rose and the desert lands froze
Each individual there was trapped in a prison
And my spirit cried out, to know what it’s about, brother
Their basis had no rhyme or no reason

Human freedom’s fundamental….and justice a right
Equality’s that thin line between wrong and right
When the Earth is denuded, her creatures oppressed
Then justice and freedom are put to the test

We say freedom, freedom will come….welcome freedom 
Justice, justice will come….welcome justice

Freedom equality and justice are one
If we resist then justice and freedom will come 
Freedom will come

The womanchild….the Motherearth
The land, the law, the human birth 
The spirit child within my womb 
The cycle of the autumn moon

My being’s my spirit the land is my law 
The industrial savages
Keep the oppressed so spoort
Resistance will break the stealth eagle’ claw
Peace is much more that the absence of war

The manchild….the Motherearth
the land, the law, the livin sun
the creatures and the living plants
all cry out as one….they chant freedom

reach out for peace
embrace human love
our global brothers and sisters
shed generations of blood
freedom will triumph….justice endure 
when we struggle united, against every war

Gather round people I’ll tell you a story 
An eight year long story of power and pride
‘Bout British Lord Vestey and Vincent Lingiarri
They were opposite men on opposite sides

Vestey was fat with money and muscle
Beef was his business, broad was his door
Vincent was lean and spoke very little
He had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor

CHORUS
From little things big things grow 
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow

Gurindji were working for nothing but rations
Where once they had gathered the wealth of the land
Daily the oppression got tighter and tighter
Gurindji decided the must make a stand

They picked up their swags and started off walking
At Wattle Creek they sat themselves down
Now it don’t sound like much but it sure got
Tongues talking
Back at the homestead and then in the town

CHORUS

Vestey man said “I’ll double your wages 
Seven quid a week you’ll have in your hand”
Vincent said “uhuh, we’re not talking about wages
We’re sitting right here till we get our land” 
Vestey man roared Vestey man thundered
“You don’t stand the chance of a cinder in snow.” 
Vince said “if we fall others are rising.”

CHORUS

Then Vincent Lingiarri boarded an airplane
Landed in Sydney, big city of lights
And daily he went round softly speaking his story 
To all kinds of people, from all walks of life

And Vincent sat down with big politicians
“This affair,” they told him, “it’s a matter of state
Let us sort it out,…. Why, your people are hungry!”
Vincent said, “no thanks, we know how to wait.”

CHORUS

Then Vincent Lingiarri returned in an airplane
Back to his country once more to sit down
And he told his people, “let the stars keep on turning
We have friends in the south, in the cities and towns.”

Eight years went by, eight long years of waiting 
Till one day a tall stranger appeared in the land
And he came with lawyers and he came with great ceremony
And through Vincent’s fingers poured that handful of sand

From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow 
That was the story of Vincent Lingiarri
But this is the story of something much more
How power and privilege cannot move a people
Who know where they stand and stand in their law

CHORUS

Now that was the story of Vincent Lingiarri
But this is a story of something much more
How power and privilege, can not move a people

When they know where they stand….
When they stand in their Lore….

From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow
From little things big things grow

CHORUS
Snap back Jack, attack ‘tack Jack
Snap back Jack, attack these images of London
These illusions, images of London

In Montague St. Bloomsbury’s parked a white Rolls Royce 
Those that own it, are inside, choosin’ a choice
Which portion of our cake they wish to partake
What our money’s worth on their exchange rate 
What home we own, when we have to vacate
They dictate where we relocate

CHORUS

Drivin’ up the Thames through the deserted docks
The boarded up doors with chains are padlocked
Homeless on the streets live in a cardboard box
Fifty ‘P’s” your fee, your destiny, you’re free to live
In poverty in a democracy, under a monarchy

Black stretched limo chauffeured by a man in a cap
Drivin’ through the beggars with a pack of rats in the back
Nursin’ corgi’s that keep crappin’ in ya lap

CHORUS

Cuttin’ lose from this unreal fiction
Headin’ for the reality on the streets of Brixton
Away from that parliamentary power ‘neath that Big Ben clock
See it from cardboard city, if you own a cardboard box

Questions of proprietary, questions of blame
Guilt and shame’s, the same, preached in Jesus’ name
No one should be made to feel they’re born to lose
Our detonator’s primed we just light the fuse……

Your strength and your spirit shine from within
Your being and the Mother Earth are one
Celebrate your womanhood, you’re a healer and you’re strong
And your life’s journey only begun….Jessica

CHORUS 
Fly with eagle upon ancient wings
Soar on the silence of winds….Jessica

Your creative intellect is a magical gift
Use it to empower Mother Earth
Listen to the wisdom of the elders who speak 
Treasure the miracle of birth….Jessica

CHORUS

Seek what is truth sing from your heart
Dance with each phase of the moon
Dance with Brolga, dance with Fire
Dance to your beings’ own tune….Jessica

CHORUS

Lay me down in the sacred ground
Keep me from the cold
Wrap me in the deep warm earth
Where the stars can see my soul 
Take me where them trees stand tall
By the waters in the river bend
Let me face the risin’ sun
Commend my spirit to the wind

CHORUS
Make no monuments or mortal crowns
Or speak my name again when you lay me down

Lay me where the forest blooms
In the land that’s seen no plough
Where the fragrance on the western wind
Is carried from every Springtime flower
Give me peace and give me rest
Lay me down on the mountain crest
Bury me softly without a sound
Let the scrub grow back across that mound

CHORUS

Bury me quick and bury me deep
Without no coffin or shrouded sheet
Wrap me in the Mother Earth
So I can nurture the land’s rebirth
Give me joy and give me song
Carry the struggle wide and long
Do not grieve and do not weep
Mortal memories are all we keep

CHORUS

Let the winter dew fall on that grave
Let me see the night sky blaze
See the Moon in the winter wane
Knifin’ through that Cosmic maze
Give me water, give me fire
Don’t give me monuments of stone
Give me rainbows in the sky
Give back my land in which to lie