STOLEN CHILDREN
The inspiration for this song came after reading some testimony given to the Stolen Generation enquiry and my recollection of an old Cinesound documentary about two small aboriginal girls who were taken from their family and adopted by a white family. The storyline was to show how 'lucky' these girls were to be given a real chance at life. My lasting image of that documentary was at the end when the girls (in new white frilly dresses) were being led up to their new bedroom and the commentator said - ‘yes dreams really do come true’.
Well he stroke my hair and he pat my back, then he tell me I look fine
He tell me I am beautiful, this skinny bod of mine
And then he give me another swig of that white man fella’s gold
I am wobbling, I am giggling, I am thirteen years old
Now I was raised with my family down by those gidgee trees
My mother and my father, three brothers and me
We were taken to that mission camp, so I am told
Herded in like cattle, I was only five years old
And then I worked at that homestead for rations and abuse
I don’t remember much past tears and that pain of being used
But as my belly ‘gan to grow, it brought it back again
I was taken from that homestead back to that mission camp
Chorus
Stolen children, taken away
Stolen children, where are you today?
Stolen children, do dreams really come true?
Is there pain in your heart, was there love enough for you?
He was born one day in early June beneath those gidgee trees
A handsome boy with rosy eyes, but skin not quite like me
And he was fairer than my brothers, but I loved him from my heart
And I learned how the colour of a person’s skin can tear two lives apart
Chorus
When the car drove in I had a sense, an urge to run and hide
But alas, it was all so quick, they took my child outside
And as they drove away in clouds of dust I cried a mother’s pain
And never once from that day forth did I see my child again
Now some say love’s unspoken when lives are torn apart
A mother’s love goes back to womb, a joining of the heart
This bond cannot be broken however far away
A child, a boy, a father, a mother still today
Chorus
Was there pain in your heart, is there love enough for you?
