Kate Grealy: Music

• MP3 play whole song, hi-fi (broadband)
• MP3 play whole song, lo-fi (modem)

Kate wrote this song as a teenager in 2001 after visiting the Goolengook forest in East Gippsland. The destruction witnessed there signalled a possibly bleak future and was contemplated by Kate in light of other alarming environmental trends, hence the lines “but, as all things turn, so backward the pendulum must swing” and “but the reverb may just drag us under”, meaning that the consequences of our careless actions could have dire effects on future generations.

Not prior to that day had I experienced the beauty of affinity with all that I saw
It was amongst giants standing still, standing tall
Swaying with the turbulence that came along their paths, and I
Waved goodbye to the future, goodbye to the past

The tyre tracks embedded on the muddy hillside
Assisted me in the steep climb
And my heart wept at the sight I saw at the top

Cause on that hillside not a bird did sing, but
As all things turn so backward the pendulum must
Swing

Wake up, open your eyes and see
That the disease is you and I
Renegade cells clinging tenaciously
To all we posses, and all we can plunder
But the reverb may just drag us under
Drag us under
Drag us under

And I came back down, but I
Could not wipe the blood of an ancient trees’
Wound, from my hands

Wake up, open your eyes and see
That the disease is you and I
Renegade cells clinging tenaciously
To all we posses, and all we can plunder
But the reverb may just drag us under
Drag us under
Drag us under