Native Born - Paul Kelly

Albert Namatjra painted

Not so much the things he saw

But what he felt inside and how he loved the Flinders Range

The only thing he ever wanted

The reason that he painted for

Was that everybody share the dream

His land would never change

Ah but change it did and through the years

They introduced some foreign plants

Familiar things are strange

While strangers play upon the lawn

And mother land has shed her tears

For lives that never stood a chance

And Albert Namatjra cried, as we all cry

The Native Born

So bow your head old Eucalypt and Wattle Tree

Australia’s bush losing its identity

While the cities and the parks that they have planned

Look out of place because the spirit’s in the land

Look out of place because the spirit’s in the land

Do you remember Joseph Banks?

Who stood upon this sacred earth

And what he felt inside when he looked around and saw

The land to whom we give our thanks

Our mother land who’s given birth

To trees and plants and animals he’d never seen before?

So bow your head old Eucalypt and Wattle Tree

Australia’s bush losing its identity

While the cities and the parks that they have planned

Look out of place because the spirit’s in the land

But no one knows or no one hears

The way we used to sing and dance

And how the Gum Tree stood and stretched to greet the golden morn

And mother land still sheds her tears

For lives that never stood a chance

And Albert Namatjra cried as we all cry

The Native Born

We cry the Native Born