Midnight Oil & Tasman Keith & Jessica Mauboy
Midnight Oil & & & Dan Sultan & Bunna Lawrie
Midnight Oil & Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu & Dan Sultan
Midnight Oil & Alice Skye
Midnight Oil &
Midnight Oil & Sammy Butcher & Kev Carmody
Midnight Oil & Adam Goodes & & & Ursula Yovich & Troy Cassar-Daley
“Gadigal Land” is a 2020 song by Midnight Oil. It was released as the first single from their twelfth studio album The Makarrata Project, and marks the band’s first new release since ‘No Man’s Land’ in 2003.
The song takes its name from the Gadigal people, who are the traditional owners of the land...
Welcome to Gadigal land
Welcome to Gadigal country
Welcome to Gadigal land
Welcome to Gadigal land
Do you know our story?
Welcome to Gadigal land
Don’t you bring your poison
Don’t you bring your grog
Don’t you bring your smallpox
Sure to kill our mob
Don’t you bring your justice
Don’t you bring your gaols
Don’t you bring your armies
Troopers on our trails
So welcome to Gadigal land
Welcome to Gadigal country
Welcome to Gadigal land
Welcome to Gadigal land
Have you heard our history?
Welcome to Gadigal land
We don’t need your convicts
We don’t need your thieves
We don’t need your squatters
Or your emancipees
Don’t you dam our rivers
Don’t you fell our trees
Don’t you carve our wilderness
Don’t you net our seas
In the land where time stands still
In the land that’s in a spell
Every day since the day you came is a day of rage
It’s a day of rage
Welcome to Gadigal land
Wenyo wenyo wenyo!
Welcome to Gadigal land
Wenyo wenyo wenyo!
Mudjaru ngaya wunyang
(take pity on my bad pronunciation)
Ngandu bayabawai….ngara
(they told us they were sorry…listen)
Ngarawa darayawai, darimi
(but I think they’ve made a mistake, because for a long time)
Garamawaimi baya mudjin, wa?
(they stole my speech and family, see?)
Birrongaingun ngarawan
(our stars are now further away)
Always will be Gadigal land
It’s unfolding you’re unloading
Your high and mighty prison ships
We can live without your muskets
We can live without your guns
We can live without your strychnine
We can live without your rum
We can live without your gallows
We can do without your chains
We can do without the massacres
The sorrow and the pain
So welcome to Gadigal land
Wenyo wenyo wenyo!
Welcome to Wiradjuri land
Welcome to Yorta Yorta land
Welcome to Arrernte land
Welcome to Mirning land
Welcome to Gurindji land
All of the lands
Welcome!
Gadigal Land was written by Bunna Lawrie & Rob Hirst.
Gadigal Land was produced by Warne Livesey.
Midnight Oil released Gadigal Land on Fri Aug 07 2020.
I always wanted to find whether there were still some folks in the Sydney area who spoke in the Gadigal language, because it was a very small clan. So I came across Joel Davison, who is a Gadigal poet, and I asked him if he’d come in and have a listen to the song and if he thought that was something...