A Tale of Two Cities

Day breaks, night falls. Taken from 'Broken Voices and The Eyes of Men' (2021).

A song about falling in love with the bartender. Taken from 'Broken Voices and The Eyes of Men' (2021).

A song about people and kites. Taken from 'Broken Voices and The Eyes of Men' (2021).

The night before I left Darwin, I caught up with my producer Broadwing to chat about the stories behind the sounds. We listened to the songs, then discussed loops and lyrics, beats and baking trays, and how to know when a song is finished. Turns out we each learned a lot from the other guy.

In this final episode, I do my best to put the whole jigsaw together, I share the moment in Arnhem Land when I found the missing piece and I introduce you to one of my heroes, a German sea captain with his own inspiring tale of two cities. Features some of the song "We Know The Wait and the Wait is Better" and audio from the 1976 film "Voyage of the Damned". The song "SS St Louis, 1939" was written within a Tasmanian winter by me and produced under the weight of a Darwin build-up by...

Almost everyone in Darwin is from somewhere else and almost everyone leaves in the end. Everyone has a story about how they came to be up here and I would like to tell you mine. We'll meet the photographer whose work inspired this podcast and the radio announcer who was kind enough to allow me to sing her story. This episode features audio generously provided by ABC Darwin. "Song For Kate" was produced by Broadwing and was nominated for NT Song of the Year in 2018.

In Darwin, privilege and poverty are side by side. Sometimes poverty sleeps on the footpath outside your apartment or asks you for fifty cents when you're on your way to the shops. And I get the feeling I'm not supposed to talk about it. It's just the way it is, you know? This episode features me singing one of my earliest songs, "To Fall Away," and a Pink Floyd classic. The song "Naked as a Bird" was produced by Broadwing.

In this episode I seek out the truth about one of my earliest known ancestors, a blue-eyed teenager who found herself sent from the island of her birth to another island on the other side of the world. I end up calling the landlines of my Nan and then my old man, before walking in the tiny footsteps of the woman who gave life to all three of us. Features me singing some of Bob Dylan's "Ring Them Bells" in a big old room filled with memories. The song "The Ballad of Agnes Turley" was produced...

Episode 4 is really a tale of three cities: Darwin, Launceston and Berlin. The hero of our story starts out in 19th century Germany, sails to Tasmania in the early 1900s and then travels by freight train to the Northern Territory in the new millennium. And then there's a landscaper in a library, a tiny blue flower and a beautiful woman. This episode includes two of my previously unreleased songs Race You To The Red Light and Silent, Holy, as well as piano music from Craig Townsend and Willow...

In episode 3 we listen to "Circle People, Sitting Down," the third song on my new album. We wander city streets up north and remember city streets down south, lose ourselves among ideas of us and them, and find ourselves clutching an old harmonica. This episode features music by Andrew from Gove, and one of my unreleased songs, "Shelter in Shade". The song "Circle People, Sitting Down" was produced by Broadwing.

In episode 2 we listen to "How Green Your Glow From So Far Away," the second song on my new album. We will roam far from home, compare 'The Great Gatsby' with The Great Gas Binge of the Top End and The Great Gaps left in the landscape of Tasmania, then we will fall in love with wherever we are. This episode features my versions of "From St Kilda to Kings Cross" by Paul Kelly, "Arafura Pearl" by Kathy Mills and "You Come Back to Tassie" by John Williamson. The song "How Green Your Glow From...

In episode 1 we listen to "Waiting For the Storm," the first song on my new album. Then we shelter from cyclones and sunburn, compare the way we remember the bombing of Darwin with that of Pearl Harbour, and make a delightful tropical cocktail out of old myths about change. This episode includes my version of a Bob Dylan tune, "The Ballad of Hollis Brown". The song "Waiting for the Storm" was produced by Broadwing.