It Was Only One Song

The UK's Turin Brakes may be the contemporary crowd-puller headlining this year's annual Gum Ball get together at Dashville, but for the festival director Matt Johnston, the act he's looking forward to most, a dream come true, is the duo representing the musical legacy of Redgum, singer songwriters John Schumann and Hugh McDonald.

There's a certain appropriateness to their acoustic performance since this year, The Gum Ball kicks off on ANZAC Day. After all, Redgum's biggest hit was I Was Only 19, Schumann's seminal paean to the Diggers of the Vietnam War, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary, originally recorded and released in 1983 as part of the album, Caught In The Act. In recognition of that fact, Schumann and McDonald have just recorded and released a new version of the Redgum track, The Long Run, while the “unplugged” version of I Was Only 19 recorded by John Schumann & The Vagabond Crew in 2008 for their album, Behind The Lines, has been re-released by ABC Music, and Allen & Unwin are publishing an illustrated children's book of the song next year.

“One way or another, Hughie and I, all the time, a song pops up and we record it when we get some time and, you know, bung it in the vault and when we've got enough, we release an album.” Schumann explains the workings of today's Redgum, essentially just the two of them now, though only Schumann is a founding member, McDonald joining the band, which began in 1975, in 1982, Redgum as a band breaking up in 1991, Schumann having already departed in 1985. Schumann released a debut solo album, Etched In Blue, in 1987 before throwing himself into the political fray, first through rallies against the late Joh Bjelke-Petersen and the proposed damming of the Franklin River, and then taking up the position of Chief of Staff to the then Leader of the Australian Democrats, Meg Lees, in 1998. Despite coming close to winning a seat, he opted to concentrate on his family and music and set up a communications, PR and consultancy company, returning to music with an album based on the poetry of Henry Lawson. McDonald is a member of his current band The Vagabond Crew.

“And then Hughie and I do what we affectionately refer to as The Hughie & Schuie Show – we go off to festivals and do our duo thing, which is really, really cool and which is what we're doing at The Gum Ball. We love playing as the duo but probably the first love is the band, which, as my wife never ceases to point out, is an expensive little pet!

“So we do a range of things, from Redgum of course, because that was a pretty important part of our musical heritage, and people still want to hear those songs, and then obviously some songs from my solo, sort of, period, and then obviously they want Crew stuff. It's great – we can play for hours. In fact we have done on a couple of occasions. I mean, I just love playing with Hugh. We're sort of, on a good night, one entity, we've been playing together for so long and Hugh is such an accomplished musician that we can quite unconsciously turn mistakes into musical highlights.”

Schumann was lucky. He actually was 19 when Gough Whitlam, on becoming Australia's first Labor Prime Minister in 23 years in 1972, scrapped the drafting (by lottery) of Australian males aged 20 with the prospect of serving in Vietnam in that most divisive (for the western nations) of wars. So he never saw action, but, mainly through the first person accounts of action told him by his friend and brother-in-law Mick Storen, Schumann was able to write a song that has become an anthem not only among veterans but also for all Australians. The original single sold more than 150,000 copies – quite the surprise for a politically committed folk band with never a thought to the charts – topped the chart the year of release, is quoted on the Vietnam War Memorial in Canberra, and was most memorably recast in 2005 as hip hop by The Herd.

“Sometimes I have to pinch myself,” Schumann admits when he considers the song's unexpected success and longevity. “A songwriter gets to write a song like I Was Only 19 once in his or her lifetime if they are very, very, very lucky – and I've been very, very, very lucky. You know, it's kind of interesting, I have to just remind myself that it's actually real and it has worked like that and we still talk about this song thirty years after its release. There are very few songs in the Australian pantheon that we can say that about. But it's not the only song that I've written, and while I am immensely proud of it and immensely grateful that it's been so successful and done so much good, it's kind of like, if you've got five kids, and one of them is an AFL footballer, the only one of your kids anyone wants to talk about is the AFL footballer, where in fact you're equally proud of all of your kids.

“In the music industry sense, I kind of own ANZAC Day like Mark Seymour owns Grand Final Day. People ring me up from all over the country asking me to perform on ANZAC Day, and I just wish there were a hundred of me.”

As it happens, on that last album, Behind The Lines, which was re-released in 2011 with a bonus DVD of a Vagabond Crew performance at Woodford, Schumann did a version of that other iconic Vietnam Vet favourite, Cold Chisel's Khe Sanh, the premise of the album being a reflection on the experienes of Australians at war, although it also included Waltzing Matilda, and Schumann's musical setting to the Henry Lawson poem, To An Old Mate, not specifically about war but a favourite from his 2005 Lawson album. That was an album that Schumann only recorded at the instigation of a good friend, David Minear.

“In lots of ways, I owe it to David to be still playing at this level,” Schumann suggests. “Had he not dragged me out of, not retirement but semi-retirement, and talked me into doing the Lawson album, I don't think I would have done all the things that I've done since. Not that I think in terms of a career because I think music's more important than just to be a vehicle for a career, but certainly that album and the formation of The Vagabond Crew and my reuniting with Hughie McDonald certainly did kickstart a resurgence in what one could loosely refer to as a career.”

John Schumann and Hugh McDonald (Redgum) will be playing the following dates:

Thursday 25 April - The Gum Ball, Belford NSW