Song draft from LookUpLookUp 2019 Melissa Main
WARNING This song is a work in progress. But I have been writing it for over 2 years and this is the form it is currently resting in. It is a fictional tale based on Australia's dark history of colonisation, frontier wars, genocide, complicity and child theft, so is not an easy listen.
Songwriter's thoughts: there are a few problems with it as is:

1. As an Australian with largely colonial heritage, I have privilege that comes from the exploitation and genocide of Indigenous people the world over (but especially on the lands my family lived on over the last 200 odd years). I don't want to further exploit stories of Indigenous people or tell stories that are not mine to tell, though I feel compelled to contribute to building our collective understanding of our real history (because we are all living in this mess and it needs to be talked about). I have tried to undertake this task in the most honest and respectful way I can, but I remain open to critique on how I could do it better, particularly from Indigenous mob or artists who are undergoing a thoughtful decolonizing practice of their own... feel free to email me with your thoughts.


2. It's a super long song! I have tried ruthless editing, but it always loses something important. I may rewrite the whole thing one day OR leave it here, in full transparency of my learning process, we'll see

I wakeI wake to theI wake to the soundThere's a baby, a baby cryingMy own wee bairnNot six weeks in the ground
Oh husbandOh husband can youOh husband can you hearThere's a baby, a baby cryinghe needs a feedingAnd I am leaking milk
The law of the breastsays a mother cannot resttil what is lost is found
We'll take a lanternTake a lantern and get walkingIt is latehis cries are weakbut his spirit is strongNo husband I won't go back to sleep
The law of the breastsays a mother cannot resttil what is lost is found
When something's tornIt'll need a mendingWith a hole this big I'll not live to see it mendedBut I must take up our needle and threadAnd begin
There's somethingSomething dark afoot hereAs we're walkingI see your feet are steps ahead of mineOh husbandyou say you hear nothinghow is it you knowwhere to go?
WAIL
At the bottomAt the bottom of the bluffThere's a horrorA nameless, godless sceneOh husbandYou and your brothersWhat have you done?
There's bodiesSo many dark skinned bodiesYou mutterThis is war, it was us or themOh husbandyou and your brothers what have you done?What have you done?
In the moonlightIn the moonlight wrapped tightIn his mother's arms gone coldThere's a babyA baby cryingShe made sure her body broke his fall
coz the law of the breast says a mother cannot rest til what is lost is found.
Husbandyou'll say nothingwe will claim this baby as our ownWe'll say we found himNobody ever need knowOh husbandgo get your brothersand your shovels
Nobody ever need know
When something's tornIt'll need a mendingWith a hole this big we'll not live to see it mended
We must take up our needles and thread
And begin