With National Reconciliation Week fast approaching Reconciliation Australia today launched a video of the iconic Australian 1982 hit song, Solid Rock, being performed at the summit of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The song’s writer, Shane Howard, of Goanna fame, was joined by the Sydney choir, Barayagal and its leader Gamilaraay songwriter Nardi Simpson to perform the song in celebration of reconciliation and justice for First Nations peoples.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge performance has special significance with this year’s National Reconciliation Week (NRW) being the 25th anniversary of the historic walk for reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge when more than 250,000 Australians demonstrated their support for reconciliation and First Nations justice.
Reconciliation Australia CEO, Karen Mundine said the NRW theme this year, Bridging Now to Next, shows we still have a long way to go on our reconciliation journey as a nation, but we have come a long way.
‘Since the year 2000 there is now far greater awareness amongst Australians of the complexity and magnitude of First Nations’ histories, cultures, and social systems and what we must do to reach a just, equitable and reconciled country,’ she said.
‘This year is the third year of our NRW Voices for Reconciliation project with more than 500 Australian choirs coming together to perform Solid Rock across Australia.’
Australian musicologist, and writer of the Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop, Ian McFarlane, described Solid Rocks as “a damning indictment of the European invasion of Australia”. Howard’s record label at the time, WEA, opposed releasing it as a single because they thought it had little commercial appeal.
The song directly challenged Australia’s official colonial history of peaceful settlement while at the same time winning enormous affection from the Australian music-listening public.
Shane Howard said that he is deeply honoured that Solid Rock was chosen for the Voices for Reconciliation choirs this National Reconciliation Week and he has some advice for the choirs performing it.
‘Sing it with gusto, sing it like you mean it, sing it like it matters, because it does. Sing it like we are on a journey to somewhere much better because we are.
‘It’s all in the song and we still haven’t faced up as a nation and proclaimed “Let us tell the truth, let us get on with the business of truth-telling, and then let’s get on with the treaty business. Let’s turn our anger into action.”’