Redgum - Spark of the Heart video free download

Redgum's fifth album, Frontline, was released in August 1984.

By 1984, the Redgum line-up comprised Schumann, Truman, Atkinson, McDonald, Stephen Cooney (bass,didgeridoo, mandolin, banjo), Michael Spicer (piano) and Brian Czempinski (drums).

Lyrics

It's a harsh dry land, it breaks your back

And scars and gnarls your hands.

Now carcasses rot in the sun,

And dust silts up the dams.

Sacked two men when the postie poked those

Blueys though the flyscreen door....

And the welfare state dried up ten years before.

It's Hobsons' choice, they run this plain

And the flocks melt into bone.

You can drove the stockroutes for a year

And cripple life at home.

I still look forward to every day

But every day's the same:

Awake in a sweat, a dream of the smell of rain.

But a river runs silent, runs deep.

I work this land, it grips me by my feet.

Staying 'til my blood runs cold.

Spark of the heart, iron in the soul.

My great grandfather pushed his luck

Beyond the Goyder line.

Now all that's left are mute ploughshares

And a gravestone caulted with lime.

In tribute, I still use his Swiss

barometer in vain.

But fate be damned, the weather hasn't changed.

Fifty miles by riverland,

There's pasture fenced and sprayed.

Profit margins chinagraphed on

Boardrooms in LA.

Absenting landlords meet to match

Their smiles and fake suntans.

In three years they'll have leached the soil to sand.

But a river runs silent, runs deep.

I work this land, it grips me by my feet.

Staying 'til my blood runs cold.

Spark of the heart, iron in the soul.

Josie searches saltbush,

Where rain once rain its course.

It's a shock to see a child of twelve

Grow old upon a horse.

The glory box lies locked with memories

Silent as the phone.

But even in the shadows, it's our home.

Government relief just might keep

Breeding stock alive.

But the agents jumped the cost of feed

And the export market's dived

If it breaks, I'm still in debt

Until I'm ninety eight.

Will the last one out please shut

the bloody gate.

On the news it seems unreal

Droughts a cancer cities just can't feel.

Survival's a story untold.

Spark of the heart, iron in the soul

But a river runs silent, runs deep.

I work this land, it grips me by my feet.

Staying 'til my blood runs cold.

Spark of the heart, iron in the soul.