Recently, I’ve revived an old idea that I’ve called Red Dirt Hymns. A few years ago, it came to nothing, but it seems to have found its time. Simple songs – simple to sing, not simple to write – that may yet add up to something larger as a pattern emerges.
I’ve commissioned some of Australia’s best poets, asking that they write me lyrics about the sorts of things that hymns are about – praise, awe, struggle, acceptance, love, hope and forgiveness; that the lyrics be strophic, with a strong sense of metre and the odd rhyme. And they’re coming in, so far from Jordie Albiston, John Kinsella and David McCooey, with promises from a dozen more.
You can read an article about this project for the AMC’s Resonate magazine.