Finalist - JCMA, for songs written about South Australia
This song was another written whilst I was participating in a song writing group that the wonderful Keppie Coutts hosts, (if you would like to find out more, please check out 'How to write songs'). A bit about the group = each fortnight the group is given a prompt to write to, its often a little random and can be tricky. The prompt for this song was "Last resort" a lot of people in the group wrote about holidays, for me the words “Last resort” takes me to a different place, a refuge of last resort sought in a bushfire.
I'd wanted to write about the (Cudlee Creek) fire for a while, but wasn’t sure of the angle, it had a big impact on my life (I was involved both on a personal and professional level on that hot December Friday in 2019 and the many months after) I knew that the trauma was still raw and unhealed in my rural community in which I life and work and I wanted to honour it.
So I chose to write the story of a song through they eyes of a man who stayed and defended his farm.
Grown Men Cry
(Writer: Jessie Che - Lyrics & Music)
Verse
December Friday's should be fine, with morning sun
This ain't how its begun
The wind n worry turn things dry
Its days like these, make grown men cry
Verse
Sirens echo up from town, where smoke stings
The lost chase begins…
Planes 'r swallows in the sky
Its days like these, make grown men cry
Chorus
Things he loves, are razed
'n charred leaves, fall like rain
Will life…be the same?
After the hills are forged in
Flames….. hmmmm…….hmm
Verse
His horses have numbers on their sides, n plaited manes
To cheat the fire…
Let ‘em run, let ’em try
Its nights like these, make grown men cry
Chorus
Things he loves, are razed
'n charred leaves, fall like rain
Will life…be the same?
After the hills are forged in
Flames….. hmmmm…….hmm
Verse
Everyone remembers that day, but those with scars
That wont wash away
Shadows of all that's broke inside
Still days like these, make grown men cry
Planes like swallows in the sky…