success writing music for theatre and television, though he made it plain that his real ambition was to create music much more profound, much more spiritual than that.
âSo let me get this straight,â Jenny said. âThe Aboriginal myths tell of legendary ancestors who, in Dreamtime, wandered all over the continent singing out the name of everything they came across; not only naming birds and animals and plants the way Adam supposedly did, but also naming hills, rivers, valleys, mountain ranges.â
'Thatâs right,â Billy said draining a tube of lager.âAnd in that way the ancestors sang the world into being.â
âBut Iâm not sure I quite understand that,â Jenny said. âBy definition if they were giving names to things, the things must already have existed.â
âNone of this is easy for the white, western mind to understand,â Billy said. âYou see, each ancestor is thought to have left a trail of music and words along the route he travelled. So a song becomes a map and a direction finder. If you know the song, you know your way across the whole country.â
Jenny wasnât quite sure he was answering the question sheâd asked, but she let him go on.
âThe man who goes walkabout,â Billy Nation continued, âis making a sacred journey, reliving his ancestorâs journey and singing his song as he goes.â
âAnd the subjects of all these songs are holy?â Jenny asked.
âThatâs right; every rock, every waterhole, every cliff face, theyâre all sacred sites, because our ancestors sang about them in Dreamtime.â
âI guess that pushes up real estate values too.â
Billy frowned at her and she looked apologetic. She knew it was a cheap shot.
âIâve never been much of a singer myself,â Jenny admitted. âI have enough trouble staying in tune without having to sing a continent into being.â
Billy smiled indulgently. He was prepared to be charitable, if lordly, towards this white woman and her jokes.
âYou arenât going to be able to understand any of this from the festival bar,â he said. âYou have to experience the songlines, see them
in situ
. If you had a couple of days, I could take you up country so you could meetsome real local musicians, people for whom music and breathing are one and the same thing. You could play for them and they could play for you.â
Jenny took the offer at its face value and said OK. She could tell that Billy was surprised and not necessarily pleased. He obviously never imagined that sheâd take him up on it, and perhaps he hadnât thought through all the implications of travelling into the bush with a strange white woman, but now that sheâd accepted, he was too proud to withdraw or modify his offer. The trip was on.
Billy Nation turned up next day at Jenny Sladeâs hotel in a battered old Land Cruiser, decked out with roo bars, sand ladders, spare petrol cans and tyres. It was thickly powdered with oxidized red sand, as if it were trying to camouflage itself and blend in with the earth.
Billyâs cello took up very little space inside the Land Cruiser. Jenny loaded up her own gear, and Billy drove away from the civilization of Alice Springs into the low, blank desert landscape. As they drove along increasingly unmade roads the equipment in the back rattled and bounced around as though creating some long, free-form percussion solo. Jenny feared breakages but Billy was oblivious. She wondered whether he would put a cassette into the stereo, wondered what music heâd think appropriate for the trip, but the player remained unused, Billy preferring to hear the song of the wind and the road.
Jenny Slade stared at the slowly undulating land, at the anonymous dirt road, the endless low scrub and said, âIt looks like an easy place to get lost in.â
Billy Nation smiled the smile of aman with inner knowledge
âSo let me get this straight,â Jenny said. âThe Aboriginal myths tell of legendary ancestors who, in Dreamtime, wandered all over the continent singing out the name of everything they came across; not only naming birds and animals and plants the way Adam supposedly did, but also naming hills, rivers, valleys, mountain ranges.â
'Thatâs right,â Billy said draining a tube of lager.âAnd in that way the ancestors sang the world into being.â
âBut Iâm not sure I quite understand that,â Jenny said. âBy definition if they were giving names to things, the things must already have existed.â
âNone of this is easy for the white, western mind to understand,â Billy said. âYou see, each ancestor is thought to have left a trail of music and words along the route he travelled. So a song becomes a map and a direction finder. If you know the song, you know your way across the whole country.â
Jenny wasnât quite sure he was answering the question sheâd asked, but she let him go on.
âThe man who goes walkabout,â Billy Nation continued, âis making a sacred journey, reliving his ancestorâs journey and singing his song as he goes.â
âAnd the subjects of all these songs are holy?â Jenny asked.
âThatâs right; every rock, every waterhole, every cliff face, theyâre all sacred sites, because our ancestors sang about them in Dreamtime.â
âI guess that pushes up real estate values too.â
Billy frowned at her and she looked apologetic. She knew it was a cheap shot.
âIâve never been much of a singer myself,â Jenny admitted. âI have enough trouble staying in tune without having to sing a continent into being.â
Billy smiled indulgently. He was prepared to be charitable, if lordly, towards this white woman and her jokes.
âYou arenât going to be able to understand any of this from the festival bar,â he said. âYou have to experience the songlines, see them
in situ
. If you had a couple of days, I could take you up country so you could meetsome real local musicians, people for whom music and breathing are one and the same thing. You could play for them and they could play for you.â
Jenny took the offer at its face value and said OK. She could tell that Billy was surprised and not necessarily pleased. He obviously never imagined that sheâd take him up on it, and perhaps he hadnât thought through all the implications of travelling into the bush with a strange white woman, but now that sheâd accepted, he was too proud to withdraw or modify his offer. The trip was on.
Billy Nation turned up next day at Jenny Sladeâs hotel in a battered old Land Cruiser, decked out with roo bars, sand ladders, spare petrol cans and tyres. It was thickly powdered with oxidized red sand, as if it were trying to camouflage itself and blend in with the earth.
Billyâs cello took up very little space inside the Land Cruiser. Jenny loaded up her own gear, and Billy drove away from the civilization of Alice Springs into the low, blank desert landscape. As they drove along increasingly unmade roads the equipment in the back rattled and bounced around as though creating some long, free-form percussion solo. Jenny feared breakages but Billy was oblivious. She wondered whether he would put a cassette into the stereo, wondered what music heâd think appropriate for the trip, but the player remained unused, Billy preferring to hear the song of the wind and the road.
Jenny Slade stared at the slowly undulating land, at the anonymous dirt road, the endless low scrub and said, âIt looks like an easy place to get lost in.â
Billy Nation smiled the smile of aman with inner knowledge
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