The inspirational band that took Indigenous culture to the world

BIOGRAPHY
Yothu Yindi: Writing In The Sand
Matt Garrick
ABC Books, $45

The spine falls open on a decorated spread that runs to three pages. “This land was never given up. This land was never bought and sold … Treaty Yeah, Treaty Now,” the famous lyrics read. The fact that the song lands almost bang in the middle of his life story might well have struck the late Dr M Yunupingu. Balance was his thing.

Yothu Yindi, with the late Mandaway Yunupingu at the front, pictured in 1996.Credit: John Lamb

The great Yolngu educator and unlikely rock star drew his last breath, sadly, with his pinnacle of achievement 20 years behind him. The groundswell of First Nations recognition inspired by Yothu Yindi’s sole hit is historic and undeniable. All these pages later it’s archived on Spotify with the rest of the 1991 hit parade.

That’s the nagging disconsolation that dogs Darwin journalist Matt Garrick’s triumphal biography of the rock band that took Yolngu culture, and by extension Australian Indigenous pride and grievance, to the world. Like the bark petitions presented in protest to the House of Representatives by Dr M’s Yirrkala elders in 1963, Treaty is a demand without a response: more relic than spark of revolution.

But isn’t that the way pop goes? Grabbing the world’s attention is all about showing it a good time, not a long time, and Garrick gives due emphasis to that side of the equation as he follows a likeable bunch of black and whitefellas from tin sheds in Arnhem Land to the biggest stages of the world.

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It’s more than Dr M’s story. The narrative can feel the weight of committee as every available member of the (still) accumulating collective takes turns reminiscing. Cue mildly naughty hotel hijinks, writing, recording and touring with Paul Kelly, Neil Finn, Andrew Farris and Midnight Oil; and escalating performance opportunities recalled with many variations on “Woah, this is amazing!” and “What the hell, look at all these people here for us!”

The international impact of Yothu Yindi’s unprecedented mix of bungul and bilma, drums and guitars, ochre and yidaki, anthem and manikay is worth reiterating. It’s gloriously surreal to read about the band’s encounters with Joey Ramone, Neil Young and The Grateful Dead.

“No, you are my hero,” disco king John Travolta tells painted dancer and co-founder Witiyana Marika backstage in Hollywood.

In a global sense, just being seen at that level amounts to a massive triumph for a band representing 40,000 years of under-the-radar culture, even if the pop market’s aforementioned appetite for novelty found little time for the four albums that sank after Treaty soared.

One conversation with Kelly, recalled by band manager Alan James, perhaps explains the disconnect between Dr M’s fundamental goal to educate and the more snappy imperatives of pop. “I start off with a word, then it turns into a line,” Kelly says. “[Mandawuy] starts off with a book and he’s trying to jam it into a song.”

With the knock-out punch of Treaty, the pair found the perfect balance that drove Dr M to create, whether teaching his “both ways” curriculum at Yirrkala Bilingual School or addressing the Glastonbury Festival hordes.

“Nothing changes. There is no treaty. Business remains unresolved. Yunupingu’s dream of a brighter day is still a distant light on the horizon.”

Matt Garrick

The highs and lows that rippled from that miraculous collision of song craft and dance-pop sound production sometimes coexist within a single moment, as when Dr M’s Australian of the Year triumph is brutally soured by shock jock Alan Jones’ sneering dismissal — in the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People, no less.

Though clearly a believer in Yothu Yindi’s continuing mission, Garrick doesn’t shy in his final page from the harsh facts. “Nothing changes. There is no treaty. Business remains unresolved. Yunupingu’s dream of a brighter day is still a distant light on the horizon.”

But neither does he fail to balance that despair with hope. The breathtaking, if tragically brief rise of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, the blind musician from Elcho Island who began as Yothu Yindi’s drummer, illustrates the band’s legacy in terms beyond the purview of the city shock jocks.

To East Journey, Yirrmal, King Stingray and a hundred other bands from Arnhem Land and far beyond who pick up guitars and sing in their own language with a steely eye on the world stage, this is a story of priceless inspiration.

With all due balance, the best we can say is it’s not over.

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