Nathan Davies: Archie Roach’s debut song changed how Australia thought. We needed him

Three chords and the truth is what it took for music to speak to people. Archie Roach changed a nation with one song, and we owe him, writes Nathan Davies.

Three chords and the truth.

This, according to 1950s Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard, is all you need to make music that means something; music that speaks to people.

And it’s hard to think of a better example of this truism than Archie Roach’s 1990 debut single Took The Children Away.

Archie took three chords – G, C and D in this case – and his own truth and wove them together in a song that literally changed the way we thought as a nation.

It was a heartbreaking tale of Archie’s own childhood, of how he was taken from his parents and put into white foster homes as a member of what would later come to be known as the Stolen Generations.

“Told us what to do and say,” Archie, who died far too young last week at the age of 66, sang.

“Taught us all the white man’s ways/Then they split us up again, gave us gifts to ease the pain.

“Sent us off to foster homes, as we grew up we felt alone.”

Singer songwriter Archie Roach. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

For many of us hearing Took the Children Away was the first time we had to contemplate the terrible injustices of these policies and their lasting legacies.

And while Archie, a man who had a lot of hope and forgiveness in his heart, gave the song an uplifting ending where the children come “back to their mother’s land, back where they understand”, the reality is that many cases didn’t have such a happy resolution.

Many Indigenous people ended up separated from country and family, stripped of their identity and birthright.

Took the Children Away did what many songs try to do, but very few songs actually achieve – it started a national conversation.

This conversation laid a pathway for Paul Keating’s 1992 Redfern Speech, which in turn paved a way for Kevin Rudd’s official apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008.

Archie Roach was an important Australian artist, perhaps one of the most important. He never really had a “hit song”, but his music will outlast the hits.

So it was heartening to hear Paul Kelly, an artist who played a big role in launching Archie’s career, acknowledge his friend’s legacy at Thursday’s unveiling of Paul Kelly Lane in the CBD.

In fact he did more than that – he used his speech to deliver an a capella version of Archie’s Charcoal Lane, a performance that led to many in the room shedding a quiet tear.

Paul Kelly in Paul Kelly Lane, in the City of Adelaide, named in his honour on August 4. Picture: Morgan Sette

And he went on to suggest that perhaps one more Adelaide laneway could be renamed in honour of Archie and his lifelong partner and collaborator Ruby Hunter.

Kelly told how Archie, who was drinking too much and sleeping rough in Adelaide at the time, met Ruby at a Salvation Army shelter colloquially known as the People’s Palace.

Together they helped each other to heal the wounds of the past, helped each other find their voices as artists and, later, made a home together where they raised two boys and provided a safe place for dozens of children who would have been at risk of homelessness.

Archie and Ruby were inseparable pair, and to see them immortalised together in a laneway near where they first met seems like a fitting and important tribute.

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor was immediately receptive to the idea, essentially saying the Council would make it a priority.

I guess when Paul Kelly asks a favour you do your best to make it happen.

Archie had a deep affection for Adelaide, often saying so during live shows in our city.

He loved it, he said once in an interview, because it was a city that valued its trees and that made him happy. And, of course, because it was where he met the love of his life.

Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach in 1995. Picture: Gerald Jenkins

Archie Roach at home in southwest Victoria in 2021. Picture: Justin Williams

“It was here I met my wife Ruby, and that’s reason enough to love Adelaide,” he told the crowd at the 2021 Womadelaide festival.

I was lucky enough to interview Archie a handful of times, and it could be a tricky process because his humility meant he wasn’t particularly comfortable talking about himself and his own achievements. He was much happier singing the praises of others.

But now that he and Ruby have both died, it seems fitting that Adelaide should remember these talented and humble singer-songwriters and the fact that their story started right here in the City of Churches.