The Dreaming

[Lori]

'Bang!' goes another kanga
On the bonnet of the van
"See the light ram through the gaps in the land."
Many an Aborigine's mistaken for a tree
'Til you near him on the motorway
And the tree begin to breathe
"See the light ram through the gaps in the land."

("Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha")

Coming in with the golden light
In the morning
Coming in with the golden light
Is the New Man
Coming in with the golden light
Is my dented van

Woomera

"Dree-ee-ee-ee-ee-
A-a-a-a-a-
M-m-m-m-m-
Ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-
I-i-i-i-i-
Me-me-me-me-me,"

"Dree-ee-ee-ee-ee-"
Woomera
"A-a-a-a-a-
M-m-m-m-m-
Ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-
I-i-i-i-i-
Me-me-me-me-me

"Dree-ee-ee-ee-ee-
A-a-a-a-a-
M-m-m-m-m-
Ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-"

The civilised keep alive
The territorial war
"See the light ram through the gaps in the land."
Erase the race that claim the place And say we dig for ore
Or dangle devils in a bottle
And push them from the Pull of the Bush
"See the light ram through the gaps in the land."
You find them in the road
"See the light bounce off the rocks to the sand."
In the road.

Coming in with the golden light
In the morning
Coming in with the golden light
With no warning
Coming in with the golden light
We bring in the rigging
Dig, dig, dig, dig away

"Dree-ee-ee-ee-ee-
A-a-a-a-a-
M-m-m-m-m-
Ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-
I-i-i-i-i-
Me-me-me-me-me,"

"Dree-ee-ee-ee-ee-"
Woomera
"A-a-a-a-a-
M-m-m-m-m-
Ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-
I-i-i-i-i-
Me-me-me,"

"Dree-ee-ee-ee-ee-
A-a-a-a-a-
M-m-m-m-m-"
Woomera.
"Ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-
I-i-i-i-i-
Me-me-me-me-me,"

"Dree-ee-ee-ee-ee-
A-a-a-a-a-
M-m-m-m-m-
Ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-
I-i-i-i-i-"
Woomera
"Me-me-me-me-me."

Ma-ma-many an Aborigine's mistaken for a tree
("La, la, oo-ooh!")
"See the light ram through the gaps in the land."
You near him on the motorway
And the tree begin to breathe
Erase the race that claim the place
And say we dig for ore
"See the light ram through the gaps in the land."
Dangle devils in a bottle
And push them from the Pull of the Bush
"See the sun set in the hand of the man."

"Bang!" goes another kanga
On the bonnet of the van
"See the light bounce off the rocks to the sand."
You find them in the road
"See the light ram through the gaps in the land."
In the road
"See the light."
("Push 'em from the")
Pull of the Bush
"See the light bounce off the rocks to the sand."
("Push 'em from the")
Pull of the Bush
"See the sun set in the hand of the man."

"Oh, re mikayina!"

[colleen]

This is just a little snippet that I thought might be of interest to others re: The Dreaming.
This is possibly the only KB song which ever faced being BANNED!!! (a little known fact!)
Where I live, in the state of Queensland, Australia, we had a fairly tyrannical despot for a State Premier throughout the 1970s & most of the 1980s. His name...Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. He ran this place like his own little kingdom and gave minorities a particularly hard time. Many human rights groups condemned his treatment of Aborigines, like the way he herded these once-proud people onto reserves, denounced the possibility of land rights and mined the guts out of the fragile arid land.
Well, in late 1982 when The Dreaming came out, there were several rumblings in high places about the lyrics - "the civilised keep alive the territorial war... erase the race that claim the place and say we dig for ore..."
I distinctly remember reading an article in a newspaper that said the State Govt were considering banning the song. I just wish they had gone ahead and done it - it would have been great publicity for Kate and her brave exploration of a sensitive topic! By the way I love this song . I have reservations about the video because she has people who are blatantly not Aboriginal posing as Aboriginal . I guess there were no Aboriginal people available in England when she shot this video.

[Al Truest]

I think we lost our previous thread on this song. You put specifics to the general theme of the song that we had gleaned- which was essentially as you stated, but without the name. Thanks for the intel.

[LilyWhite]

This is probably a really stupid question, but when she says "kanga" does she mean kangaroo?

[Max]

Yes, Kanga means Kangaroo.
The first line is about how the white men kill the kangaroos as they drive in their big trucks.

[stev0]

Translation of the first line into American: "Another Kangaroo goes 'Bang'! off the hood of the truck."

The Australian version sounds so much better.

[LilyWhite]

maxd said:

Yes, Kanga means Kangaroo.
The first line is about how the white men kill the kangaroos as they drive in their big trucks.

The white men do the same up here with many different animals most notably deer. An occasional moose. My grandfather complains about that all the time. I should have caught this line on my own! Thanks guys! Not to be a pain in backside, but what does that last line mean, that "oh re mikayina" (sp?) part? I'll stop asking questions about this song after this I promise!

[Max]

Hmmm...Not sure. The only thing I can find about it is this which I found at 'Children.of.the.night.org'

at the end of `` the dreaming'' a voice says something... Nick says that he cannot make out. Is this aborigine, and, if so, does kate know what it means?


Yes it is Aborigine. And it's a lyric from a song called Airplane!, Airplane! And it's very strange because its one of the first aboriginal songs about airplanes which were coming from the civilized Australians. (1982, Unknown BBC interview)

[LilyWhite]

Thanks Max! I did an extensive search and all I come up with is Kate Bush links to these lyrics. Even just trying Mikayina. Although I understand the Aborigines are probably not very linked to computers.

[tabatha]

may I ask a question? Well you really can't stop me asking, so I will. This was the single released from the album? And if so where did it get to in the charts, I've heard 43, which sounds a bit low for Kate. Thanks.

[Max]

Yeah, 'The Dreaming' was released, but it only reached number 48 in the charts.
And no one will stop you asking questions
Max

[dreaminghound]

I'm a prospector in Colorado and I see Dreaming as a story on the early gold prospectors.
"see the light bounce off the rocks to the sand" I have held a gold nugget as large as my hand from Australia. They were found just laying on the ground in the early days.
DH

[rosabelbelieve]

I know the general consensus on this song is that it is about the plight of Australian Aboriginal peoples, and I have no doubt that's what Kate meant when she wrote it, but this is a more metaphorical interpretation

IMO, this is X's dream. This is the vision she is possessed by upon the arrival of the intruder. It seems to take her even deeper into the unconscious, to the primal level of mythology and magic, tales of the dreamtime. It is the dreaming, the spirit world. She thought she was powerful, that she knew everything. The Dreaming humbles her. It unravels the skeleton of her knowledge and sets her back in the glowing, milky fertile primeval waters. The prima materia. She is set back to wonder and terror, in this strange, murky, magical land of gods and dragons and uroboros snakes. She is again a stranger who knows nothing of this mysterious ravishing land of light bouncing of the rocks to the sand, of ululations, a fierce Eden unknown to the civilised. The chorus of D R E A M T I M E.... shows this perfectly for me- it is half-wild, dissonant, mystical, astonishing, chaotic... a deep animal world of spellbound paradox, unfolding in myths and spirals, unconscious and fertile, irrational chaos, muddy and divine. The sacred disorder. Maybe this is the tale of a traveler, awakening her to something deeper than she has ever known. She soon returns from this dream ("see the sun set in the hand of the man" gives me this impression) but it presents the difficult tension in NOTS.

[Barry SR Gowing]

I'm not going to expound too much on the meaning of The Dreaming yet but I'll make some general comments, being Australian and all.

I suspect the reason why we can't figure out what "Oh re mikayina" means is partly because there are many different Aboriginal languages, and partly because it may not be spelled correctly.

The Aborigines are composed of waves of people who came to Australia over a period of at least twenty thousand years. As Australia is so large (almost as big as the USA) undoubtely many of the groups never encountered each other, and so their languages developed independently. Also there were different lifestyles to be led - a tribe in the harsh outback would have operated quite differently to a tribe living on the coast where food (including fish) would have been abundant. Also (as an Ice Age was going on back then) the climate would been more temperate than it is now, so conditions were more pleasant.

However, despite these differences the Aborigines all share some things in common. These include traditional beliefs (such as the Dreamtime) which may mean that at least some of their beliefs originated prior to their arrival in Australia. Possibly the Aborigines actually preserve some beliefs that people in other parts of the world had in prehistoric times but have since forgotten. The other shared experience for Aboriginals is the arrival of white folk in their lands about 220 years ago.

Although attempts are being made by the white people to put right the wrongs of the past (ie, since 1788) it is not easy to make up for a long period of neglect and/or abuse. There was never a stated official policy of racism, and the Aborigines have had full recognition of their rights since 1967 (overwhelmingly voted for by white Australians in a referendum - over 90% supported this - the highest yes vote ever in a referendum here). However, there obviously were white people who exploited Aborigines back in earlier times, and they were in general somewhat ignored prior to 1967, and this has resulted in a level of anguish for the Aboriginal people. Their way of life has been corrupted to an extent and this is something that has caused problems to this day.

I am familiar with a lot of the Dreamtime stories, in fact some white children were taught them at schools, even back when I was a child (which is a while ago now). We did sometimes have visits from Aborigines too, to try and give us some sense of their culture. I don't know if that happened at many other schools, or whether I was lucky.

I have met many Aborigines since, but as a city dweller most of the Aborigines I've met are also city dwellers and so are perhaps not representative. Some of the urban Aborigines do go back from time to time to their traditional homes to participate in corroborees and so forth.

The idea of 'walkabout' is very interesting. I've certainly thought about it, although it's not something that you'd attempt unless you were brought up with the ability to survive in the outback. There are very specific skills required to operate in that sort of marginal environment. Part of the walkabout is a process of self-discovery and a deeper attachment to the world around, and also to the world of our ancestors and also to a deeper reality.

It's interesting that I feel an attachment to the land here, but I also feel drawn to the lands of my ancestors, even though they are many thousands of kilometres away in Scotland and Ireland.

The Dreaming undoubtedly did attract some attention in Australia back in 1982, some of positive, some of it negative. I only wish Kate hadn't attempted to sing it in that pseudo-Australian accent. It really gets on my nerves, as it's marginally less accurate than the accent the Monty Python guys used in their sketch about Australia ("The Bruces' School Of Philosophy"). In fact, I confess it turned me off Kate for some years. Not because of the themes she was exploring, which also covered at around that time in songs by Australian acts like Midnight Oil and Goanna, but just the overall tone.

Of course, if the song is really just meant to be about an Englishwoman dreaming about the Aboriginals, then I guess I can forgive her

I know Kate did live in Australia for a few months as a child, although I imagine her family lived in one of the big cities. Nonetheless the experience must have made some impression on her.

--Paul--

[rosabelbelieve]

Thanks for all the information.