Don’t you just love those songs that stop you in your tracks? That make you forget about everything except for the music you’re listening to? Those songs are so rare, but “Elder,” the new single from Radical Son, aka David Leha, is one of them. It delivers a powerful and deeply personal statement of David’s devotion to country and his Kamilaroi and Tongan heritage. Honestly, I’ve got goosebumps.
“Elder is a song I began three or four years ago when I was working on country in Moree and Armadale, New South Wales,” he recalled. “I was working on a program with emerging artists called Yanayai, which means ‘returning’. I was helping these artists to create a piece in a genre of their choice and the conditions were that they had to have three generations of their family help them, and they also needed to incorporate some language into that as well. The bones of the song were there then. The language section from Jida Gulpilil (son of David), that came later. It’s quite simple. It’s just saying, ‘Let’s move, let’s dance and celebrate’.”
“Elder” is the first taste of Radical Son’s highly anticipated sophomore album, Biliyambil (The Learning), which features guest performances from David Bridie, Emma Donovan, and Jida Gulpilil. Listen out for that one when it drops in September.
Image used with permission from On the Map PR; credit: Cameron Bloom