Lost soul    (video)    (clip)

 

      - - - - - - -    C                                    F                         C

1. There is no sun here, the sun’s ten thousand miles away,

                      C                    F                                G

    there is no light here, it’s cold and damp and grey,

                       Am              F                                 C

    there’s no glory here amongst these marble stones,

               F                  C                    G                  C

    only young men’s names above young men’s bones.

                  F                            C                           G

    We’ve searched for you so long and came so far,

             F                                    - G                  C

    and now at last, dear brother,        here you are.

 

         G         F                C

Lost soul, Ngarrindjeri man,

         G           F                             C

lost soul, far from the Dreamtime land,

         G    F                 C

lost soul, lying here alone,

   F                 C                                 G                       C

Naggrindjeri warrior, we’ve come to take your spirit home.

                         G                                      C

To where the black swan glides and the pelican soars,

                     G                                       C

above the Coorong’s blue waters and golden shores,

                      F            G               C                       F

where the Dreamtime sings from every leaf and stone.

   C              G       C         C              G       C

Home, Coorong, home. Home, Coorong, home.

 

      - - - - - - -      C                   F                C

2. Why did you come here, Ngarrindjeri man,

                       C                      F                    G

   to fight and die here in this cold and alien land ?

                               Am                      F                     C

    You owed them nothing, yet your life you freely gave,

             F             C                   G                  C

    the mark of a warrior, not a servant or a slave.

                        F               C                    G

    And as you fell in this war to end all wars,

                    F                                   G                      C

    did they see that your blood was just as red as theirs ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         G         F                C

Lost soul, Ngarrindjeri man,

         G           F                             C

lost soul, far from the Dreamtime land,

         G    F                 C

lost soul, lying here alone,

   F                 C                                 G                       C

Naggrindjeri warrior, we’ve come to take your spirit home.

                         G                                      C

To where the black swan glides and the pelican soars,

                     G                                       C

above the Coorong’s blue waters and golden shores,

                      F            G               C                       F

where the Dreamtime sings from every leaf and stone.

   C              G       C         C              G       C

Home, Coorong, home. Home, Coorong, home.

 

       C

+  Home, Coorong. (4x) ...

 

(orig. = capo 1st)    (Eric Bogle)

   

 

“  Written for the Ngarrindjeri people of South Australia. For thousands of years they have been the custodians of the Coorong, a stunning World Heritage area of freshwater  lagoons bounded  by golden sand dunes that separate them from the Southern Ocean. In 1916 from the Point McLeay Mission station in Coorong, 21 young Ngarrindjeri men volunteered to go and fight overseas for King and Country in WWI . Before they could be accepted, they had to be made temporary Australian citizens, as only Australian citizens could fight for their country overseas, and of course at that time, and in some states of Australia up until the late 1960’s , Australian aborigines were not classed as Australian citizens. Once the war was over the temporary citizenship was revoked.

Of  the 21 young Ngarrindjeri men who went overseas, five of them were killed, and only one of them, Rufus Rigney, has a known grave. In 2006 a group of school children  from the Birdwood and Woodside schools of South Australia  made a trip to the WWI battlefields in France and Belgium to track down the graves of some local men who had died in WWI. Amongst this was Rufus’s great-great nephew Victor Koolmatrie  who performed a traditional Ngarrindjeri dance before Rufus’s grave in Harlebeke Military cemetery in Belgium.. Then sand from the Coorong was scattered over the grave and some earth was taken from it and brought back to Australia where it was then in a moving ceremony, cast upon the blue waters of the Coorong . In that way, Rufus’s , lost and wandering for so many years , was re-connected  to his Dreamtime land and could finally come home. Sorry to bash your ears about this, but it’s a story that should be told “  (Eric Bogle)