With the move coming up so quickly I’ve found myself thinking lately about what it means to be Australian, and who we are as a collective group of people. Like any kid that attended public school in Australia I had to learn the Australian national anthem (’Advance Australia Fair’) off by heart, and every Monday morning we would stand in assembly and sing the anthem whilst facing the Australian flag. ‘Advance Australia Fair’ means less to me however than other songs which seem to more accurately portray my own experiences of Australia, such as Bruce Woodley’s ‘We Are Australian’ and GANGgajang’s ‘Sounds of Then (This is Australia)’.

‘We Are Australian‘ is one of those songs that teachers are fond of playing for their young pupils to encourage feelings of acceptance and multiculturalism, and it’s a popular feature at children’s end-of-year concerts and at Australia Day performances. The chorus, one that sticks in the minds of those that have performed it themselves, encourages understanding:

We are one, but we are many,
And from all the lands on Earth we come,
We share a dream, and sing with one voice:
I Am, You Are, We Are Australian.”

The first verse of the song describes the Aboriginal people, who ‘for forty thousand years have been the first Australians’. The second verse illustrates the convict settlement and ends with the phrase, ‘A convict then a free man, I became Australian.’ The third describes the two World Wars, the impact of the Depression, and the feeling of being an ‘Aussie Battler’ through the bad times and the good. The two verses I love the best however, are the final two in the song: Read the rest of this entry »