John Schumann’s love song for the Flinders Ranges
A love song dedicated to the Flinders Ranges, written 32 years ago to protect this iconic South Australian landmark, will be performed on January 26 to unite people once again— this time, in Adelaide along the banks of the River Torrens/Karrawirra Parri.
Adelaide musician John Schumann has been “desperately in love” with the Flinders Ranges since visiting on a family camping holiday when he was 10 years old.
In the late 80s-early 90s, Schumann was part of a group of environmentalists and concerned members of the public protesting the Labor state government’s unorthodox approval of a $60 million resort at Wilpena Pound within the national park.
Wilpena Pound/Ikara has held significance for the Adnyamathanha people and their creation stories for tens of thousands of years, inarguably long before white settlement, with Ikara meaning ‘meeting place’ in the local language.
The natural landmark is an important place for ceremonies and cultural initiations, and the preservation of it as a site is important to ensuring their storylines remain unbroken.
Photo: Ben Kelly
It is also a place of immense natural beauty.
“It’s not my analogy, but it was like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa,” John says of the plan, which included a 5-star international hotel and accommodation for 2300 visitors.
The project was widely supported by the Liberal opposition – except for the very vocal shadow environment minister Jennifer Cashmore.
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She was one of the protestors and, having become friends with John, she asked him to add music to a poem she had written about the Flinders Ranges.
While Jennifer’s words did not make it into the final lyrics of If I close my eyes, John says it is fair to say he would not have written the song without the preceding events.
“That became the musical arm of the campaign to stop the development on Wilpena Station – which we did,” he says.
John Schumann against St Marys Peak, Wilpena Pound at the time of the protests
John, whose song I Was Only 19 helped enlighten the public’s perception of Vietnam veterans after its release in 1983, says writing a good protest (or any) song is about storytelling with “forensic detail”.
“If you want Australians to change the way we think or behave, then tell us a story, and we will understand what we need to take from that story and amend our behaviour and our thinking accordingly.”
Photo: Ben Kelly
The lyrics from If I close my eyes speak to both the beauty of the Flinders Ranges and its ongoing connection to Country of the Adnyamathanha people.
If I close my eyes
I can see the sunlight tumbling down between the native pines
Broken by the breeze, splashing red and orange light
I can see the wedged-tail eagle climbing stairways in the sky
And…
And if I close my eyes
I’m staring into endless night
And in the hissing of the campfire
As the smoke curls to the night
I hear Nepabunna angels chanting out Wilpena’s plight
John will be performing the treasured song and a spectacular version of Waltzing Matilda with his band Gulgong Four (a pared back lineup of The Vagabond Crew) at the Aus Lights on the River event on January 26 at Elder Park/Tarntanya Wama on January 26.
First invited onto Country to work with Elders in the remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (the APY Lands) in 2008, John feels strongly about Australians coming together on Australia Day.
“I follow the lead of my friend Shane Howard from [the rock band] Goanna, who’s lived in Aboriginal Australia for years at a time and devoted his life – certainly creatively – to advancing the cause of Indigenous Australia,” John says.
“Australia Day is big enough, and we should be big enough, to spend the first part of it in quiet reflection about what the arrival of the First Fleet meant for Indigenous Australians … because they are Australian stories, however uncomfortable they might be, and they’re not all uncomfortable either.
“Then, the second half of the day, we walk together towards reconciliation, where we can be one mob under the Southern Cross.”
Aus Lights on the River, presented by the Australia Day Council of South Australia, will begin at 5pm with children’s activities and run to 11pm.
From 8pm, an official ceremony will begin with performances including Schumann, the Adelaide Youth Orchestra conducted by Jessica Manning, and the contemporary a cappella group, the Festival Statesman Chorus, under the musical direction of Dr Julian Ferraretto.
Fireworks will follow at 9.30pm.
Preceding the Aus Lights on the River 2025 event, the Mourning in the Morning – Smoking Ceremony will run from 7.30am to 8.45am on January 26.
Mourning in the Morning Smoking Ceremony sponsors are Accenture, Sarah Constructions and SA Power Networks.
Aus Lights on the River 2025 is assisted by the Australian Government through the National Australia Day Council and the City of Adelaide and is supported by the Government of South Australia.
Official ceremony sponsor Green Gold Energy.
