Lyr ADD: Festival of Light (Judy Small)

Subject: Festival of Light
From:
Date: 10 Sep 99 - 07:39 AM

There was a lovely little ditty sung by Reg Livermoore quit some time ago. (HE was fairly well known in Australia)

It was a rather scurrilous song, of which all I can remember is this fragment:

Do-si-do with a rake and a broom, no more dirty living room. It's a heydown, it's a ho-down, All the world in a Sexy Showdown. Very little time left... move your bums, got to be ready when Jesus comes...

I have no idea who actually wrote it, or what it's name is, except that I think it had something to do with the Festival of Light.

Any help would be appreciated.

Robbie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Festival of Light
From: GUEST,A friend
Date: 10 Oct 20 - 12:46 AM

Robbie
Well Robbie, if you're still there after 21 years:

I too have a recollection of Reg Livermore singing this (in which show? Betty Blokkbuster?), but it's by Judy Small and appeared on her album "A Natural Selection" (1982).

Hear the track on Spotify

Music and lyrics in The Judy Small Songbook

Here's a version of the lyrics, and some notes, from a booklet by the Gay Liberation Quire :

FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

(Music: Judy Small
Words: Judy Small
Brideshead verse - Quire)

One of two Judy Small songs the Quire sings. First performed on Stonewall Day, 1981. It also appears on the Quire's first record - "Hormones and Jeans: The Gay Liberation Quire Goes Down On Vinyl". Verses 1,2, and 3 are fairly standard, though verse 3 can be a 'floating' verse replaced witli new ones as the occasion suggests. Verses 4 and 5 are examples of this, 4 being about the film Caligula, 5 being about the t.v. show Brideshead Revisited.

Verse 1:
I am a member of the Festival of Light
And I know what's wrong and I know what's right
Right is right and you're gonna be left
If you don't agree with me
Mary White.house is our guru
And we believe that we can cure you
Of every social sin and ill
From the Swan to Circular Quay

Chorus:
So come on in and close your mind
You can leave it at the door behind you
Come on in and. sit right down
We make the blind to see
With our hands upon the Bible
We commit all kinds of libel
So raise your hands up to your heart
And retreat after me

Oh I hate reds and I hate Women Homosexuals are sinnin'
child molesters And the Lord knows
that it just ain't right
I stand for Good clean wholesome family livin'
All my sins have been forgiven
I'm pure as snow as I do-si-do
With the Festival of Light

Verse 2:
We follow the lead of moral giants
Freda Brown and Anita Bryant
The media's behind us
We're committed to our cause
Women's place is in their houses
Looking after kids and spouses
Except for Anita, Mary, and Freda
They go by different laws

Verse 3:
There's topless bathing down at Bondi
Nakedness at Ladv Jane
Oh, perverts on the rampage
on the shores of Thompson's Bay
Moral outrage and indignation
Sweep across this Christian nation
If the Lord had meant us to bathe like that
We would've been born that way

Verse 4:
That fiim about the Roman emperor
Tries even the coolest temper
Filth, pornography, and trash
Perverting innocent minds
Take it off our screens I say
Take it off our screens today
And these aren't idle words I speak
I've seen it fifteen times

Verse 5:
Decadence prevails at Brideshead
Boys are holding hands they say
Bears in perverse coupling
on the ABC. …
(Rest of this verse lost in the mists of time)

------

Judy Small was a psychologist, a folk singer, a solicitor and a Federal Circuit Court judge. She retired in April 2020.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Small

https://au.linkedin.com/in/judy-small-658b5551

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Festival of Light (Judy Small)
From: GUEST,Chook
Date: 22 Jan 21 - 06:07 PM

From my memory:

It's a hoe down, It's a hoe down
All the world in a sexy showdown
Very little time left Move your bums
Gotta be ready when Jesus comes

Now you can start this Friday night
Invite your friends to the Festival of Light
Home made movies. letters books
Give your porno one last look
And before the bonfire is finally lit
Read aloud the DIRTY BITS.

It's a hoe down, It's a hoe down
All the world in a sexy showdown
Very little time left Move your bums
Gotta be ready when Jesus comes

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Festival of Light (Judy Small)
From: GUEST,Maree Robertson
Date: 02 Jun 22 - 03:27 PM

Just to add an update, that Judy Small is now retired from the bench of the Federal Court, & is back singing publicly again, you can find her at *Judy Small Sings* on Fb etc

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Festival of Light (Judy Small)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Jun 22 - 06:29 PM

she appeared at the National Folk Festival in Canberra at Easter - it was fantastic hearing her again. Nostalgia

As I'd given most of my Oz CDs (250!) to a Community Radio Station a year or 2 ago, I bought the only CD she had in the shop - Live at the Artery, 2007, more nostalgia.

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Festival of Light (Judy Small)
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 08 Jun 22 - 08:18 PM

I loved Judy Small songs back in the late 1980s - soooo wished I could've seen her in concert somewhere! Great to hear she is performing - and writing?- again.....not sure if I will
ever make it to Australia again, so fingers crossed she might come over to Scotland some day?!

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Festival of Light (Judy Small)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Jun 22 - 04:43 AM

While she was a Judge she had to concentrate on legal matters, but retiring in 2020 sent her back to the stage!

Judy Small

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Festival of Light (Judy Small)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 09 Jun 22 - 01:18 PM

Great to hear that she is back to performing. I did see her a couple of times in Scotland before she went back to judging.