Fighting the good fight: Renowned singer-songwriter’s not the retiring type

In his celebrated anti-war lament No Man’s Land, veteran folk singer Eric Bogle sings, The killing and dying, were all done in vain/For young Willie McBride, it all happened again/And again, and again, and again, and again.

In the 50 years since Bogle wrote the now iconic song, the killing and dying have continued unabated. However, he’s not about to give up the fight or stop calling out the futility of war.

“To quote Red Gum, ‘If you don’t fight, you lose’,” he says from his Adelaide home. “The fact that it keeps happening again is disappointing to me, but not surprising. So while I get angry and disappointed at Gaza and Ukraine and all other shit going in this world, I can’t just turn my face to the wall and ignore it.”

Eric Bogle: ‘There’s a lot of like-minded people out there and I just hope that we prevail.’Credit: Ben Searcy

Not that he is under any illusions about the influence that can be exerted by one man with a guitar and a catalogue of outstanding songs.

“I’ve got more influence than most human beings who don’t write songs and don’t write poems, but I know I’m still pissing against the wind,” he says. “But if we all stop pissing against the wind we’re in real trouble, and I know there’s a lot of like-minded people out there and I just hope that we prevail.”

Born in the Scottish Borders town of Peebles, Bogle immigrated to Australia in 1976 and has gone on to carve out an international career as a singer-songwriter. He is best known for And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda and No Man’s Land, and his songs have been covered by a vast array of artists, from Joan Baez to Slim Dusty.

Bogle will perform two, two-hour concerts at this weekend’s Illawarra Folk Festival, Bulli, taking the audience on a chronological journey through his songs. He will be joined by long-term collaborators violinist Emma Luker and guitarist Pete Titchener.

“They are treasures. Wonderful musicians,” he says. “And as well as all that they are as cheap as chips.”

Later in the year he will embark on a national tour. And despite some of the billing, he insists it isn’t a “farewell” tour.

“Well, nature will say whether it will be a farewell tour or not,” says Bogle, who turned 80 in September. “But everyone seems to jump on the farewell shit – ‘Oh, Christ, he’s doing a Johnny Farnham.’

“I still do gigs in Australia when the spirit takes me. I’m not retired yet and when it is time to retire, hopefully I’ll know. So there’s a lot of wishful thinking, with people going, ‘Thank God Eric’s retired. We’ll not have to listen to his shit again.’”

There’s not much for Bogle to enjoy any more about the grind of touring, but the magic remains for him when he gets on stage.

“When the audience’s eyes start twinkling, I’m off,” he says. “It’s just the best drug in the world.”

Eric Bogle performs at the Illawarra Folk Festival, January 18 and 19