Mirning Elder Bunna Lawrie on being one of the great founders of Australian rock music and whale dreamer
Hello my Wandering Journo tribe!
This week in the Streets of Your Town magazine on substack, we’re going to Adelaide to celebrate one of the great founders of Australian rock music.
Bunna Lawrie is the frontman and founding member of the band Coloured Stone, whose song Black Boy released in 1984 is still an anthem for First Nations people.
Make sure you have a listen to this incredible man’s beautiful turn of phrase on the Streets of Your Town podcast at the link above or on your favourite podcast provider. His connection to country and fight to protect it make him a perfect fit for Streets of Your Town, and we are so lucky to have him share his story with us.
The proud Mirning Elder from the Nullarbor is a passionate environmentalist and whale dreamer, complementing his prolific music career where he continues the songlines of his people to protect these ancient creatures.
“Now Mother earth is also fertile as well as the sea. They’re both fertile and that’s where life begins,” Bunna said.
“Every tribe has different names. Every tribe’s got a leader. I’m a leader of my tribe, the Mirning people. And we just got awarded in the judgement in the native title court, given some rights to the sea.
“We should be thankful because we can grow things with the water. Now water’s very important in our life, because in our blood, if we didn’t have water in our blood, we wouldn’t be around.
“We are well connected to nature, well connected to the sea, so we know when the tide’s going to rise or we know when the moon’s going to be full. So we are in tune with mother nature. When I say mother nature, it’s the land.
“If we didn’t have water in the land, everything would dry out and evaporate and die because water is one of the amazing elements of this creation that the great creators we now believe have given us all these beautiful gifts.
“And it is just amazing that keeps us alive. We try to explain to non-Indigenous people, they still got a lot to learn.”
He is a leader in the Fight for the Bight campaign, working against big oil and gas exploration companies in efforts to have the area preserved as a World Heritage Site. His work on that campaign was honoured in the South Australia Environment Hall of Fame.
He is one of the most respected names in Australian music, earning the National NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and inducted into the National Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame in 2011. Bunna also worked with Midnight Oil on the Makarrata Project in 2021, which was named The Song of the Year at the 2021 APRA Music Awards.
One recent highlight for Bunna, after more than 50 years of performing and 12 albums with Coloured Stone, was his most recent performance at the Sydney Opera House in Generations and Dynasties, alongside his children Jason Scott, Jhindu-Pedro Lawrie, Yirgjhilya Lawrie and Catherine Satour. Together they shared stories of resilience, creativity, discrimination and empowerment through their music.
“I was so proud Nance. I was so proud,” he said.
“I just sit back quiet time. I was holding back my tears because I was looking at my door, was singing in my language, in our language, Mirning language.
“One song called Language or Stand Up or Rise Up in the way as she explained, it’s for she wants to see how people rise up, rise up and get up and do something and achieve something rise up. It also means to get up, rise up, wish our grandmothers were here. Wish Mum was here, my other grandmother’s here.
“Wish my grandfather was here. He was a teacher of teacher of all the language. He was the main singer. He was a whale song man. And he was a song and dance man. And which now I followed in the footsteps.”
Thanks for your support my Wandering Journo tribe!
Nance