WARNING: This story contains the images and names of Indigenous people who have died.
In 1988, around a campfire at Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland, Kev Carmody plucks out some chords, while Paul Kelly toys with a lyric he's had in his head.
In 2003, on the asphalt quadrangle of Zillmere State School in Brisbane, a class of public school kids sing and dance their way across the handball courts.
In 2021, singer and rapper Ziggy Ramo climbs the sails of the Sydney Opera House and performs, backlit by the sunrise.
This is the journey of what started off as a casually recorded folk song, and has become what Carmody calls "a kind of cultural love song" and a foundational entry in the Australian songbook: From Little Things Big Things Grow.
Gather round people, I'll tell you a story
Born in 1946, Kev Carmody is a Lama Lama and Bundjalung man who grew up in the Darling Downs area of Queensland, where his parents worked on cattle stations.
It was in those early days — before he was forcibly removed from his family at the age of 10 — that Carmody's eyes were first opened to music, thanks to a battery wireless radio.
Lying around the campfire with his family, Carmody would listen to symphonies by composers like Beethoven, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Bach and Mozart.
"[We'd] be listening to this music under the majesty and enormity of the Milky Way and this whole universe," he tells ABC RN.
"And the quietness. You could hear the cows breathing, idle horses moving with the bells and the hobbles on.
"It was just an amazing feeling, that sound of the music. And that always intrigued me."
That intrigue — along with a healthy love of what Carmody calls "hillbilly music" like Chad Morgan, Slim Dusty and Hank Williams — led him to enrol in university to study music and history, despite his limited schooling. He was 33 years old.
And although Carmody insists he still "can't really spell", for over 30 years he has been one of Australia's most celebrated singer-songwriters.
He has written some of the great entries into Australia's folk song canon, including Thou Shalt Not Steal, Cannot Buy My Soul and, of course, From Little Things Big Things Grow, co-written with singer-songwriter Paul Kelly.
Carmody remembers Kelly getting in touch with him following the release of his 1988 album, Pillars of Society.
"He said he'd like to come up and meet me … [so] we picked him up in an old troop-carrying Land Rover, and we went and camped at a place called Wivenhoe Dam," Carmody recalls.
Around the campfire that night, Carmody plucked at his banjo and mandolin while Kelly played the guitar.
A chord progression started to come together, and although Carmody didn't think it was particularly exciting, he says the pair recognised it would be "a great little sound to put a story to".
That story struck Carmody almost immediately.
An eight-year-long story of power and pride
The story of the Gurindji Walk-Off at Wave Hill Station entered Carmody's mind that night at the campfire with Kelly.
In the 1960s, led by Gurindji man Vincent Lingiari, 200 Aboriginal workers – including Gurindji, Ngarinman, Bilinara, Warlpiri and Mudbara workers – walked off Wave Hill Station, a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory owned by international food company Vestey Brothers.
As well as protesting against their poor working conditions and pay, the Gurindji strikers sought the return of their traditional lands.
Carmody was working as a wool presser on a sheep station at the time.
"We had an old dry cell battery, we'd run the cord up the tree. Mum used to get the back of the truck and put it down on 44-gallon drums, and that was our table. And she said, 'I just heard on ABC Radio News that Gurindji mob just walked off Vestey's station'," he recalls.
"Of course we had the Murri grapevine, the Blackfella grapevine, [so] we knew what was going on a lot more in some instances than the ABC was putting across the news.
"This is 1966. I'm 20 years old and I'm not a citizen and I think, 'Bloody hell, what's going to happen here?'"
Eight years later, in 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam went to Daguragu, where, as the song goes, "through Vincent's fingers [he] poured a handful of sand".
Though it was a symbolic gesture backed by a 30-year lease on a small amount of the Gurindji traditional lands, it was a tinderbox moment for the land rights movement.
After Carmody told Paul Kelly that story, the song came together quickly.
Carmody recalls Kelly playing with the lyrics.
"'No, not 'a snowball in hell'. How about 'a cinder in snow'?' And he puts that down."
When the pair were happy with the song, they reached out to key figures from the strike, seeking permission to tell the story.
Over the years, Carmody and Kelly have both made the song part of their regular set list, often reuniting to perform it together.
When Gough Whitlam died in 2014, their pared-back performance of the song was the centrepiece of the state memorial service.
"It was apparently part of what Gough wanted … so we went and sang that song, and the Sydney Hall was absolutely chockers. There was a thousand people outside," Carmody says.
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If we fall, others are rising
While Kelly recorded the song in 1990 for his album, Comedy, the only recorded version of the song Carmody has made is a rough-shod single take on his 1993 album, Bloodlines.
"The old man [Mr Lingiari] passed away. And out of respect, I couldn't mention his name and his name is mentioned in [the song]," Carmody explains.
For him, From Little Things Big Things Grow has collective ownership, a natural continuation of how he was raised.
"Everybody possesses this song now," he says.
"That's the old oral way of doing it. That's the way it should be. Young ones get it now."
And indeed, an ever-growing number of artists have covered the song.
Electric Fields — an electro duo comprised of vocalist Zaachariaha Fielding from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands and Adelaide producer Michael Ross — first performed their version at the Helpmann Awards in 2019.
Their rendition features the echoing voice of Mr Lingiari, saying, "That land belongs to me". In the second half of the song, Fielding sings in Yankunytjatjara, a seamless transition he describes as a kind of "magic trick".
When Fielding and Ross sought permission from Mr Lingiari's family to use his voice, they were enthusiastic about the idea.
"They really appreciated the story continuing to be told in different ways," Ross says.
Carmody — who was at the Helpmann Awards that night to receive a lifetime achievement award — was staggered by the cover.
"I thought, holy mackerel. When I walked off-stage, I just grabbed [Fielding] and give him a hug. I didn't say nothing because I couldn't say nothing. It was so good," Carmody says.
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Wik and South Sea Islander rapper Ziggy Ramo created his own version of the song, with rewritten lyrics that pay homage to the original words but don't follow them closely.
Ramo's rendition sweeps from the 1493 Doctrine of Discovery to contemporary statistics around Aboriginal deaths in custody — which have to be updated for live performances.
"For me, it was about wanting to paint the picture about why the Gurindji ever had to do what they do, why we carry what we carry," Ramo says.
He was nervous about what Carmody and Kelly might think, fearing reworking the iconic lyrics might be seen as "sacrilegious".
"It's like going and painting around the Mona Lisa," he says.
To his relief, Carmody loved it.
"The young ones can put it to hip hop or rap, it's great," Carmody says.
"I don't have to do it no more. I can sit back now."
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The story of something much more
A particularly special version of the song came from a group of students at Zillmere State School in Queensland in 2003.
Carmody was visiting the school, and says, "We just asked the kids, 'What do you want to do when you grow up?' … and we recorded them, and then we put it to the music," Carmody explains.
"It's become a reflection of the musical journey and evolution of people that have re-recorded it.
"[The song] has taken on a whole new life every time it's recorded, and the thing is, you don't have to be a trained singer to be able to participate in it."
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So what is Kev Carmody's favourite version of From Little Things Big Things Grow?
"The next new one," he says.
"You imagine, in 2,000 years time, our mob will still be using that little phrase: 'from little things, big things grow'.
"It's certainly grown into something."
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https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiWmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIzLTA3LTA0L25haWRvYy1mcm9tLWxpdHRsZS10aGluZ3MtYmlnLXRoaW5ncy1ncm93LzEwMjUzNDkwMNIBKGh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMDI1MzQ5MDA?oc=5
2023-07-03 19:00:00Z
CBMiWmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIzLTA3LTA0L25haWRvYy1mcm9tLWxpdHRsZS10aGluZ3MtYmlnLXRoaW5ncy1ncm93LzEwMjUzNDkwMNIBKGh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMDI1MzQ5MDA
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