Cambridge: Gurrumul
Cambridge: Gurrumul
Last year while at anchor in Darwin, Australia, I heard on the radio a song of such simple bittersweet beauty that I picked up a pen in hope that the announcer would repeat the singer’s name. Unfortunately she didn’t.
I hadn’t understood the lyrics, which were in an Aboriginal dialect, and I thought: Well, that is that. A young man of rare talent who will continue singing to himself and not be heard.
This morning I learned how wrong I was when I came across an article at The London Times online, “Gurrumul: hauntingly beautiful music from another Dreamtime.” Instantly I knew it must be about the same man. Also in the heading was: “Unlikely Superstar.” The article went on to say that with no promotion and only a few radio plays, the 39 year old Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, who was born blind, has attracted a world wide following with his debut album, GURRUMUL, and by selling more downloads in iTunes than Pink and Prince combined. (I must confess that I don’t know who or what ‘Pink’ is.)
Gurrumul is presently touring in England, the far side of the world from Elcho Island off the Arnhem Peninsula where he lives and which I had just sailed north of on my way to Darwin.
I immediately opened iTunes, went to the store, and bought his album. It has not disappointed. On his website I found translations of the lyrics, which are poetic, about family, tribe, ancestors, the sky, thunder, clouds, his blindness, a sense of loss, the tide, the land; but as I knew from the first, the music speaks beyond words.
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The photograph was taken aboard THE HAWKE OF TUONELA on her mooring at Opua, where the wind is only ten knots from the northwest today. Some of you may recall that I’ve posted this picture before, sometime in the journal’s lost two years. I’ve just started using it as my desktop. Soon I’ll be heading home.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009