This song evokes a fierce and protective love I feel for Australia, an ancient bony continent, remnant of Gondwana. Playing with alternate guitar tunings, I remembered a poem, written years before, after a visit to the Central Desert of Australia. How could anyone love the crimson sunsets, paprika sands and violet skies without embracing the stark, hidden underbelly of this land? A kind of righteous pride and indignation emerged in ‘Crooked Tree’, expressing the hardship and beauty of the land and its people.
Crooked Tree
Give me a crooked tree any day
Pulling life from dirt and broken bone
Songlines scribbled under bark
Drawn in sand and scarred on stone
Pulling life from dirt and broken bone
Songlines scribbled under bark
Drawn in sand and scarred on stone
Give me the bone nasal tones of barely moving lips
Vowels so flat there’s hardly room to breathe
A thread of desert song
Winding high and falling, floating on the breeze
Vowels so flat there’s hardly room to breathe
A thread of desert song
Winding high and falling, floating on the breeze
Give me the secrets of the land
Dirt and sweat and wood smoke
A splash of colour in the dark
Opal fire locked in ancient stone
Dirt and sweat and wood smoke
A splash of colour in the dark
Opal fire locked in ancient stone
Give me a crooked tree any day
Taut and twisted, strong and lean
There’s beauty in every line
Like man of the land, a crooked tree
Taut and twisted, strong and lean
There’s beauty in every line
Like man of the land, a crooked tree