1884. The Futures Exchange (Judy Small cover)

Описание: Judy Small was one of Australia's most popular political singers before retiring fully from singing in 2013 after being appointed as a judge of the Federal Magistrates Court. She has recorded twelve albums and written hundreds of songs, often expressing feminist, patriotic and left wing views. She was born in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, in 1953 and began her career as a singer and songwriter in Sydney in the late 1970s. Her songs have been covered by Ronnie Gilbert, Eric Bogle, The Corries and many others.

She became a full-time singer-songwriter in 1982 after a successful performance at the Vancouver Folk Festival. Over the next 16 years, she regularly toured in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and Denmark as well as Australia and New Zealand. She was also invited to Beijing for the United Nations Women's Conference NGO Forum in 1995, where she sang to thousands of women from all over the world.

Though she retired from full-time performance in 1998 to become a family lawyer working for Victoria Legal Aid in Melbourne, she continued to write new songs and perform regularly. I was privileged to attend her final performance at the National Folk Festival in Easter 2013.

This song was inspired by the Pine Gap Women's Peace Camp of 1985. It is about the oppression and near destruction of Aboriginal culture in Central Australia and the Northern Territory by the presence of the Pine Gap military base, operated by the United States, and the many uranium mines throughout the outback. Pine Gap and many of the mines were built on Aboriginal sacred land, with the support of Federal Governments of both Australia's major political parties.

Lyrics and chords:
... G
It rises in the sunlight, silver dome upon the sand,
..... D .............................................................. C D
Encircled by the wire like a blight upon the land
............... G
And the people of the dreaming whose sacred land it is
................ C .................... D ...................... C ....... D7 ........ G
Wonder who this Uncle Sam can be to think it could be his.

............. D
For the silver that the men have paid
.......... C .......................... G
Who think they own the land
............. D
It is the silver of Iscariot
........ C ................. D
The silver of the damned.
........ G
It is part of the accounting
....... C ......................... D
In which we all must pay,
............. G ....................... Em
Trading in our children's futures
.................. C .... D7 ..... G
For false promises today.

For the land belongs to dreaming and the people are its own
Who have lived there fifty thousand years; the desert is their home,
And the women go a-weeping and a-wailing for its loss
And we join them in their grieving and the counting of the cost.

And the mine from which the poison comes sits cold beneath the stars.
The landscape it has ravaged will forever bear the scars.
Roxby, Ranger, Jabiluka will be words to conjure shame
For the spark they help to kindle will ignite the devil's flame.

You can see a playlist of my Australian songs here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...

You can see a playlist of my mining songs here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...

Lyrics and chords of many of my songs are no longer available, as my website has expired. I am currently posting lyrics to the information panels on all my videos and those that are too long to post in full will be found on my new website: https://raymondsfolkpage.wordpress.com