Monday 24 October 2022

Bad//Dreems - Jack

  


  On this week's Just Some Punk Songs show, pretty much all the songs seemed to go down well with the chatroom but maybe a few stood out. I'll get them on here this week. Starting with...

  Bad//Dreems (https://www.facebook.com/badbaddreems) have been around since 2012 but I don't recollect coming across them before (which on the evidence of their new single is a great shame). They're from Adelaide and the single is about truth telling, in particular about the lack of truth told in schools about Australia's subjugation of the native Aborigines and the attempt to whitewash history. As the lyrics say, you never get taught about invasion or genocide, you might hear about the Russian Revolution but events closer to home are ignored. 

  At this point in my write up I'd probably be banging on about how Australia has turned up another great new band but as they've been around for a decade instead I'll suggest that you should follow my example and acquaint yourselves with their back catalogue  https://baddreems.bandcamp.com/music   

  Begin with the new single. It's called Jack...

I’ve got an itch that I cannot scratch
Right down in the middle of this ageing back

Three things that we cannot say
Invasion, genocide, Australia Day.

We’re the violence  
we’re the godsend 
we’re the Virus
We’re the wokest, 
we’re the leftest 
we’re the silence 

Look at the ground, what do I see
60,000 years staring back at me 

What you think about that Jack?
31 years and I’m talking back
What you think about that Jack
60,000 why don’t we give it back?

At my school, they taught the Russian revolution, 
The stump jump plough and the Roman constitution

No Bennelong, Namatjira, no William Barak
Beds are burning always gotta give it back?

No Truganini, Jandamurra, no Billy Barlow,
No referendum, stolen children, no Eddie Mabo

No language, no treaty, no respect for the land
No problems, no solution, nowhere left to stand

What you think about that Jack?
31 years and I’m talking back
What you think about that Jack?
60,000 years we gotta give it back

I took a walk down to the lighthouse today
Looking for a plaque there that should say
That 14 were massacred here on this day
Women and children cut down where they lay

How deep are your pockets?
How deeps your coal mine?
Nothing is as deep as the deepest of time.

Menzies ghost on the dock of the bay, 
sitting in our arm chairs sipping chardonnay

Barriers and bands and frontier walls, 
Made an effort to silence the voices of old

What you think about that jack?

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