Archer’s advocacy for the rights of First Nations peoples is a recurring theme throughout An Australian Songbook. She combined the customary Acknowledgment of (Kaurna) Country with a heartfelt statement advocating a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum on the Voice to Parliament, to which the audience responded with resounding acclamation.

Robyn Archer and ensemble in An Australian Songbook (photograph by Claudio Raschella).

In discussing Australia’s postcolonial evolution, Archer reflected on the way in which migrants created modern Australia, and she outlined her own family’s history to exemplify postwar immigration. We heard the sea shanty ‘Bound for South Australia’, and she invited each of her supporting band members – Cameron Goodall (guitar), Enio Pozzebon (keyboards), and George Butrumlis (accordion) – to sing pieces characterising their respective cultural backgrounds, emphasising how we identify ourselves through our cultural traditions. She cited high-profile immigrant musicians such as Russian Tatar singer Zulya Kamalova and guitarist brothers Slava and Leonard Grigoryan, and she could have added Joseph and James Tawadros among many others, but her well-made point is that modern Australian culture is densely woven from myriad traditions.

The plight of refugees was another focal point of Archer’s program. Her reading of Bornean-Australian Omar Musa’s insightful poem ‘The Great Displaced’ was particularly affecting, showing the obstacles and loss of culture immigrants face, whether migrating through choice or necessity.

Returning to the theme of First Nations peoples, she highlighted some well-known performers, from Jimmy Little to Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach. She cited Roach’s ‘They Took the Children Away’ both to raise the issue of the Stolen Generations and to introduce the topic of Indigenous health, asking why Roach and Hunter are no longer amongst us. Cameron Goodall eloquently delivered Goanna’s ‘Solid Rock’, and Archer’s rendition of Dr Lou Bennett’s poignant ‘The Birthing Tree’ highlighted the importance of First Nations artists such as Bennett in the retrieval and preservation of First Nations language and culture.

Archer naturally featured her own songs. ‘Menstruation Blues’, ‘Menopause Blues’, ‘Backyard Abortion Waltz’, and ‘Dicks Don’t Grow on Trees’ offer a teasing sample of her huge output and characterise her feminist advocacy. Touching briefly on failed love, Archer complemented her own ‘You’re an insect on the windscreen of my heart’ with Kate Miller-Heidke’s ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

Archer also cited prominent Australian poets such as Michael Dransfield and Dorothea Mackellar and presented settings of Kenneth Slessor’s ‘Choker’s Lane’ and Dorothy Hewett’s ‘Weevils in the Flour’, including the latter to address the themes of environmental degradation and the widening gap between rich and poor.

Australian country music was represented by the McKean Sisters’ ‘Gymkhana Yodel’ and Kasey Chambers’s ‘We’re all going to die someday’, which muses on life’s disappointments, while Greg Champion’s songs humorously satirise Australia’s preoccupation with sport. And in citing Peter Stannard’s ‘Lola’s Misgivings’, which concerns the performance of exotic dancer Lola Montez at the Eureka Stockade, Archer pointed out that the Eureka rebels mistreated the Chinese diggers who had been there first.

Politics was satirised with ‘Dig Up Dirt’, co-written with Paul Grabowsky, Archer’s captivating setting of Julia Gillard’s ‘Misogyny Speech’, and Goodall and Pozzebon’s delightful rendition of ‘Heavens, Mr Evans’, about Labor minister Gareth Evans’s affair with Senator Cheryl Kernot, from Casey Bennetto’s musical Keating!

An Australian Songbook compresses a near-encyclopedic listing of songs and songwriters and their connection to pivotal moments in Australia’s history into just over two fast-paced hours. While she could perhaps have illuminated her themes with a more concise program, she demonstrates the breadth and depth of Australian song writing and gives voice to neglected songwriters. She concluded the concert with a medley of excerpts from thirty-one songs whose subject matter takes the listener on a journey around the Australian continent. Audience members might have appreciated a printed program identifying the songs and songwriters, to consolidate their new musical awareness.

Ultimately, this history lesson was as entertaining as it was profound, and the performances were superb. Commissioned by Queensland Theatre and first presented last year, An Australian Songbook asks whether music and the arts generally can precipitate social and political change.

In the Backstage column (ABR, June 2023), Archer has said that her favourite venue is the Dunstan Playhouse, so she must have felt at home in this concert, particularly as this launch of her forthcoming national tour coincided with her platinum birthday. As songwriter, singer, festival director, arts organisation board member and ABR Laureate, Robyn Archer continues to be a vital figure in Australian culture.

An Australian Songbook (Adelaide Cabaret Festival) was performed at the Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre on 17 and 18 June 2023. Performance attended: 17 June.