1345. Shelter (Eric Bogle cover)

Another song for Australia Day.

This is a great Australian song by Australia's greatest singer-songwriter, but it is also a very simple song, easy for an audience to join in with, and with a universal theme many would identify with. Though the song is addressed to Bogle's adopted country, Australia, and deals with his relationship to it, the only clear evidence that the country concerned is Australia is the mention of a "dreamtime place", a reference to Aboriginal mythology.

Warren Fahey, in his notes to the CD set, "Singing the Spirit Home", has pointed out that this song succeeds in expressing something that is difficult to achieve in verse "without hitting those dangerous rocks of jingoism". It has been favourably compared to Peter Allen's more popular song "I Still Call Australia Home", which succeeds admirably in appealing to the emotions, but does not ask us to reflect more deeply as this song does.

You can see a playlist of my Australian songs here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0DE11C284435E7A2

You can see a playlist of my Eric Bogle songs here:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=PL52944E8B208E651D

For lyrics and chords of all my songs, please see my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• folk
• song
• australian
• eric
• bogle
• immigration
• refuge
• patriotic
• dreaming

[raymondcrooke]

@DaveZeman It's amazing how many great songs he's written.

[DaveZeman]

Eric is definitely one of the finest songwriters.



[raymondcrooke]

@1952banjo Thanks, Virginia.

[raymondcrooke]

@FolkAndMore Thanks, Wolfgang. I like this song very much.

[1952banjo]

love it!!!

[FolkAndMore]

Another new one to me, Raymond. I like the heartfelt way you perform it. It's quite fitting for such a song. Well done!...Wolfgang