An Organism Called Earth (December 2002)

This was our first CD and represents four years of gathering remarkable environmental songs from Australia and overseas, arranging them for unaccompanied voices, and even penning a few of our own. Our most prolific composer, and probably the most arrested member of the group, is Paul Spencer. His Organism Called Earth is a sonic tapestry, each rhythmic thread of which is dedicated to the complex diversity of earth and its millions of creatures. The personal inspiration from such richness is the resolve to “fight for my planet”. That declaration is a powerful response to the condition of our world, and a fitting reply to the Message From Mother Earth written by English songwriter Frankie Armstrong nearly twenty years ago. Our arrangement of this solemn and beautiful work builds layers of harmony that intensify to the climactic and critical questions: “Why can’t you hear? Why can’t you see? Whether or not we choose to see and hear the distress our world is in lies at the centre of a dialogue composed by Leon Rosselson, also from England, in which we look Across The Hills at the prospect of the ultimate environmental catastrophe - nuclear war. The uneasy tension between fear and repose continues in the poetry of Nigel Gray set to more music by Rosselson. This chilling lullaby isn’t likely to help you Sleep Well. And if uranium were not a fearful enough substance there is also Asbestos. The number of deaths caused by asbestos related diseases is due to reach its peak by 2010. Emery Schubert’s wonderfully expressive arrangement of this song contains some very fine original work. Not only is our environment Fragile, so are the human beings who defend it and each other. Sting’s moving tribute to Ben Linder - a peace activist murdered by US sponsored mercenaries in Nicaragua - is skilfully arranged by Christina Mimmocchi for whom, as for many others, it carries wider resonances. Yet loss and grief are not the end. Particularly when we are joined with others, be they lover, daughter, friend or caring stranger, we can find a greater depth of purpose after suffering setbacks. In Come Away With Me Tony Eardley started out writing a love song but it became also a lament for our forests, and a passionate determination to stand firm in a community of resistance. A different kind of forest community is responsible for our next offering. The three songs of the Ambore Medley come from the Sepik River region of Papua Niu Gini and were brought to Australia in 1995 by Henrik Ason, a member of the Raunisi Theatre Group in Wewak. His visit was part of a campaign called 'Big Bush Bugarup' exposing the depredations of the logging industry in PNG. The songs were collected from the Bondna people living in the mountains 'half an hour's walk from where the road ends', and arranged by Raunisi. Additional harmonies were written by Jean Anne Jones and Miguel Heatwole, both then members of the Solidarity Choir in Sydney Australia. Ambore is about hunters and gatherers returning from the forest to their village and children. A steady increase in volume depicts the growing excitement at their approach. Pe Pe Pe Pelesi Imo, a song handed down through several generations of Bondna elders, reminds us how transient our lives are compared with those of ancient forests. Emo Kikimo finishes the medley on a celebratory note, expressing the joy of people who live in harmony with their forest home. We hold on to this upbeat mood as we look at various forms of environmental activism. In Green Like Me, another of Paul Spencer’s songs, we have a chuckle at people whose green credentials appear rather pale when given daily examination, and hope we aren’t laughing at ourselves! Another local songwriter, Margaret Bradford, demonstrates what we can more usefully achieve in our day-to-day lives: wrapping some very practical advice about household water conservation in a lively and humorous musical package. Miguel Heatwole's jazzy choral arrangement of Drip Drop makes the most of the onomatopoeic possibilities. Turning again to Paul, we find him inviting us to Make Some Music and join in a chorus consisting of: banner drops - when activists scale the heights of a tall building to hang a banner with a message on it; lock on pipes - used by protestors to handcuff themselves to bulldozers and such; tripods and canoes - the first a form of flimsy roadblock on which a brave individual risks being injured by the wheels of ‘progress’, the second used to picket visiting warships, or vessels carrying rainforest timbers or nuclear waste. We also ought to explain for the benefit of listeners from other countries that in Australia the Liberal and Labor parties are comparable to the Republicans and Democrats in the USA and the Tories and Labour in Britain. Not much to choose from. In Roads, Traffic And Authority Paul employs a quick satirical wit to show the foolishness and danger of authority’s addiction to the motor car. It could well be said that he follows in the footsteps of Tom Lehrer whose 1960s classic, Pollution, is one of the earliest, and wittiest environmental songs ever penned. Laugh ‘til you cough, but save some for its companion piece Air by Galt MacDermot, James Rado and Gerome Ragni. From the 1960s 'American Tribal Love Rock Musical' Hair, this song is an upbeat critique of our society's production of airborne toxins. Ecopella does not perform nude! We turn now to two pieces that in different ways express a general joy and wonder at the world. Roy Gullane of Scotland’s Tannahil Weavers, in a work arranged by our Terry Clinton, helps us keep in mind the worthiness of every victory achieved in the struggle for a Land Of Light. And taking a long view from the depths of space we may see Fay White’s majestic, slow and solemn tribute to the ancient beauty of the Universe's Daughter. We conclude with the thought that however heavy the losses endured by our earth, however powerful the greed and stupidity that poison it, there is absolutely no point in giving up. The worst thing you can do is nothing. The best thing you can do is find good people and Stand Fast. - Miguel Heatwole, 2002      Songs In The Key Of Green (March 2008) Welcome to Ecopella’s celebration of a decade of environmental harmony! We’d been looking forward to our second album for quite a while - although for rather less than Five Hundred Years. The story behind our opening track concerns a 16th century church in England whose builders planted an oak nearby so its timber could replace the roof’s central beam in the event of fire. Such vision is rare these days - nowhere more so than in the NSW government which prefers the property developers’ quick buck to the environmental concerns of local communities. We want to bring its attention back to earth and Put It On The Ground. You already know the slogan: think globally, act locally. Dominating our global thoughts is the threat of catastrophic climate change as our grieving planet sheds Ice Tears. Limiting the resources we consume - particularly those carrying a high cost in carbon emissions - seems an obvious response to Living In One World. Until its defeat in 2007 the Howard government’s refusal to sign the Kyoto protocol obliged thoughtful Australians to make do with their own individual efforts at reducing greenhouse gases. My Kyoto points to some of these, and boasts more widely about the ethical use of resources. Activists however recognise a paramount need to seek change at a higher political level than that of the individual or household. Given the weight of opposition and inertia they face it seems inevitable that they’ll grow Weary. If more people shared the load we might well create for them the occasional opportunity for a well-deserved rest. Until then many of us will feel Restless and raise our voices against the disaster of war. Throughout history armed conflict has agonized not only humanity but also brought horrific destruction to the natural environment. In past centuries Europe lost much of her forests to navies of wooden ships - while in Ireland the woods near Bonny Portmore were razed because they also offered concealment to guerrilla fighters resisting the British occupation. Turning our focus homeward we find a different kind of war as protesters campaign for Australia’s old growth forests. Machines Are Closing In was written by one of our members to commemorate a battle in which he took part. Australian waterways too are threatened and Murrumbidgee Water invites us to understand better how the Wiradjuri people have honoured the river and the life it brings. In Tasmania hydro electric dams destroyed the trout-fishing phenomenon known as The Shannon Rise and flooded the original Lake Pedder. Threatened with a similar fate the Cataract Gorge near Launceston was saved by the vigorous action of wilderness advocates. These waters flow into the ocean, and following them out to sea we achieve a soaring and rather elegant perspective on the conservation of marine bird life on the Wings Of A Seabird.Back on land, the Eroded Hills of New England inspired a moving, if bleak, spectacle from one of Australia’s revered 20th century poets. We follow this with our own Ode To Soil which honours the substrate with more upbeat sentiments. The agricultural aspects of this earthy theme supply even more levity as we discover that in America The People Are Scratching after disrupting the ecological balance with pesticides. Another satirical warning is sounded by certain Vegetables From Hell, this time against interfering genetically with the earth’s produce. The planet we inhabit has incredible beauty and our wish to preserve All The Wild Wonders it contains brings this collection to a close. We hope that you enjoy our music and will support the cause it serves. This will not be the last you hear of us. We have so much work to do. - Miguel Heatwole, 2008      Green Footprints (March 2018) Acknowledgement of country makes a respectful beginning to any event held on - always was, always will be! - Aboriginal land. So too for this contemplative collection of (mostly) Australian songs. We are indebted to Deb Jones, director of the Solidarity Choir for the gift of her song and the loan of her comrades to record it. Other songwriters from within our ranks continue this theme: Dallas de Brabander, inspired by the First Nations’ respect for country and by the beauty of the Gandangarra bushland she lives in, asks us to Listen Deep To The Land; Sue Gee always found Wolli Creek to be a special place and honours the people who fought, and still fight, the ongoing battle to protect it from ugly polluting motorways. Other places honoured by our friends include Newell Highway, in John Warner’s adaptation of an old hymn tune, and Australia’s forests and woodlands in Wendy Joseph’s Of Trees And Humankind. From the land to the sea now. Kaye Osborn, formerly of our alto section, lets us hear of frightful damage to our planet’s oceans in a Whisper On The Waves. Englishman Andy Barnes long ago envisaged the brutal extinction of the Last Leviathan, and we keep singing his poignant lament so as to keep alive the international whaling ban that prevents it from coming true. Before we return to exclusively Australian material, I’ve borrowed Cole Porter’s famous tune to put out a planet-wide warning that if we don’t exert ourselves to protect the planet then we may see that Everything Goes. Non-Australian listeners should be aware that our Liberals, referenced in the last verse, are a party of plutocratic conservatives, not to be confused with US American liberalism. The stark contrasts, moral and otherwise, involved in Arctic oil drilling gave Sydney songwriter Brian Jonathon his inspiration for Oil On Snow. I’m glad he obliged us with an uplifting end to the song! Our dear friend and former colleague Christina Mimmocchi was having a bad week and gave herself - and now quite a few Sydney choirs - some healing comfort with Let There Be Peace. In the peaceful surrounds of one of our favourite folk festivals, far from the curse of unsustainable consumerism we met Melbourne songwriter Annie Kennedy and were moved by her message to leave behind Unnecessary Things. People who know of the threatened environmental catastrophe facing all living things will also know Fear. Ecopella member Paul Spencer usually deals with it with merry wit and satire (see either of our previous albums) but here has written profoundly serious music that passes from sombre solitary darkness into the warm light of friendship. In that same benign radiance we close this album with two songs of mine: Earthly Love is a secular hymn to the powerful bond uniting activists around the planet, whether known to each other or not; while Blue And Emerald takes that co-operative message noisily out into the street to celebrate the integrity of our movement’s commitment to our common purpose. - Miguel Heatwole, 2018     You're Needed Now (September 2023) Now! Not tomorrow! You're Needed Now is Dallas de Brabander’s call to come and join us in the streets and swell the numbers demanding action against coal-fired climate change. No lame excuses please! Besides, it can be fun to celebrate the planet and look to a cleaner future for it. That’s why Ecopella observes Earth Day on a year-long rather than a yearly basis. Celebrating our victories is a rare pleasure, so I wasn’t disappointed at having to rewrite AGL when the determined citizens of Gloucester, NSW defeated that company’s planned gasfield in 2016. Now, as we help the Knitting Nanas resist the Santos Narrabri Coal Seam Gas Project, we enjoy Paul Spencer's rewording of an old traditional melody: When Coal Seam Gas Was New. Paul has given us a great many excellent songs over the decades, and while He's Gotta Go is now somewhat dated, we include it here because it was so much fun to sing! We reckon ‘though that Take Me There will be relevant as long as there are idiot commentators on the Right complaining of a political influence that the Green movement can only wish we had in reality. Ecopella rocks! Even without electric guitars or my drum kit our a cappella version of John Ross’s Councillor Chambers has much of the energy that the Born Again Pagans put into it during the 1990s. That band was led by Peter Hicks, whose satire Let's Pretend has also waltzed its way into a choral arrangement. And while we’re dancing, how about a couple of tangos? We love it when our friends, the Men With Day Jobs, join us at rallies to sing their Denial Tango, and it’s always a popular item on our setlists. If Canada were accessible by bike, rather than jet plane, I’d love to ask Marie-Lynn Hammond for a Two Wheel Tango. Our second sexiest song is more local. With some help from the pop culture of the noughties, and an atlas, Clark Gormley has given his Murray Darling a sense of humour in the face of dire crisis. The small habits recommended in My Kyoto  aren’t offered as substitutes for more active political campaigning but are simply some environmentally benign things to do in daily life. Since we last recorded it, two albums ago, it has acquired a verse about a stronger action we can all take. Divest came from some words of Annie Close. We aren’t licensed to give financial advice, but there it is. I first heard Unity by John Tams at a folk session, and recorded the singer in my People Have Songs compilation. Our later choral version’s rousing anthemic style has made it popular among the activist groups we sing for, as well as a number of other choirs. We’re grateful for the voices of the Solidarity Choir who joined us on this recording. When we realised, a decade ago, that we needed a noisy song to take out on exuberant street marches, Cathy Rytmeister gave us illuminating words for an Energy March lauding the immense power of wind, wave and sun... and of ourselves! - Miguel Heatwole, 2020