Nature Songs - Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service (1978)

 Although I was brought up in Victoria - Australia's southernmost mainland state and a long way from tropical Queensland - this record of environmentally themed children's tunes reminds me of my childhood. My family's particular jam was the classic Feathers, Fur or Fin by Don Spencer, but there must be a whole world of Australian ecological kid's music out there to discover. Due to the incredible natural heritage we've inherited, environmental education is often given a high priority in Australian schools, even at the earliest levels. And as all educators know, there's no more effective route to data retention than singing along to a catchy, upbeat tune strummed on a guitar.

Although a lot of these tracks are folky, three chord guitar-based numbers, there is plenty of inventiveness in the execution of these Nature Songs. I'm The Spider is rendered as a weird, glammy stomp with a delay pedal guitar solo. Marsupial's instructive lyrics about our unique native mammals are delivered via kind-of-rapping backed by indigenous didgeridoo and rhythm sticks.



The lyrical content is occasionally a little ham-fisted, but overall fun and informative and not afraid to touch on environmental issues that might seem too obscure for kids. What songwriter today would have the balls to write an entire song about decomposition for a children's audience with lines like: I decided to look closer, I bent down on my knee, I saw some fruiting bodies of the bracket fungi. Looking even closer, I saw some fibrous threads, fungi have no roots so use hyphae instead? Or an entire song about coral polyps or epiphytes?

The record is divided by the two sides; side one is the dry side featuring songs about life on land, side two is the wet side (from The Polyp Song onward), featuring songs about life in the water.

Label: Private
Released: 1978

Players: Brian Mackness - words and music.
Sandy Pollard - lead vocals and harmony, six and twelve string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, flute, descant recorder, alto recorder, sopranino recorder, autoharp, glockenspiel, percussion and sound production.
Laurie Stone - mandolin, technical  advice, sound mixing and production.
Steve Errey - sound recording.
Jacky Nisbet - vocals and harmonies.
Keth Ross - banjo.
Mick Walker - blues harp.
Darryl Boyd, Jason Boyd and Leanne Mash - narration, vocals.
Sam Bun'tarrawuy - didgeridoo.
John Guillot, Robyn Kreis - percussion.
Brian Mackness - sound production.
Peter Ogilvie - bird call recordings.
Amanda Hadley, Melinda (Lindy) Hadley, Gregory Hadley, Gregory Mash, Tony Rasmussen, Stuart Mash, Kathryn Mash - vocals.

Engineered by Laurie Stone at Multi Media Studios, Spring Hill, Brisbane.

Mediafire.

I'm selling a couple of Libaek singles on eBay.

If anyone's interested I'm selling some singles on eBay, amongst them, a few Libaek records: the Thatcherie single from the Inner Space soundtrack, the Boney Title Theme single from the Boney soundtrack and the Andy Sundstrom Northern Territory single composed and produced by Libaek and previously featured on this blog. I've also got a bunch of 7" singles released by Secret Chiefs 3 in 2007 and a Ween single from White Pepper, if you're into those sorts of things.