The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #120275   Message #2614762
Posted By: cobber
19-Apr-09 - 11:00 PM
Thread Name: Folklore: God Damned Australia!
Subject: RE: Folklore: God Damned Australia!
My favourite for performance is Holy Dan, again more irreligious than reverent. Growing up in the sixties in a small town in Australia, church was an important part of the social life and was often the only place where you met your neighbours. My next door neighbour was a mile up the road. The nearest "big" town i.e. it had a station where you could get a train to Melbourne and a high school, had nine churches and one pub. Then for a few years there was no pub as it was demolished to build a Woolworths supermarket in the late sixties. I guess that meant there was plenty of religion available but most of the hymn books were imported from England so coming from there, as I did, it was all very familiarb but there was no great emphasis on "Australianising". Only around Christmas did the Australian songs get a bit of a run but they were always overshadowed by Silent Night etc.