“Well I heard it on the radio
And I saw it on the television
Back in 1988
All those talking politicians
Words are easy, words are cheap
Much cheaper than our priceless land
But promises can disappear
Just like writing in the sand”

THE words to Yothu Yindi’s song Treaty echo in the mind of GANGgajang guitarist Robbie James.

He toured the globe playing Treaty as a member of Yothu Yindi at the height of the band’s success from 2001-2006.

“It’s unbelievable isn’t it? The Barunga Statement was delivered back in 1988 when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister. It still hasn’t happened. It is in the process though and I think the Voice is a great way to get it happening,” Robbie said.

“Everyone I talk to just wants to have a conversation, get the whole country talking, which is a great thing. I can’t see anything wrong with that.”

GANGgajang has just released Speak To Me, a reworking of their 1994 hit Hundreds of Languages to add momentum to the Yes campaign.

“There’s something so powerful about indigenous culture. You do sometimes have a religious moment. I had that in Yothu Yindi out in the middle of the bush, suddenly you get it; you can see the power of the land. They are the oldest culture on Earth,” Robbie said.

“GANGgajang had that with The Voice. We are drawn to it. We’ve had a series of fatalistic things happen.”

It was drummer Graham “Buzz” Bidstrup who came up with the idea of remaking the song for the Yes campaign for the Voice to Parliament.

“He just brought it up and we thought, yeah, everything about this song is about what this current conversation is actually all about. It’s about the hundreds of languages, it’s about communication. It’s about the whole country having a conversation really,” Robbie said.

“That song just sounds perfect, so we took the lyric Speak To Me, that’s actually in the song, and called this version Speak To Me because it is direct. It seemed too good to ignore.

“My sentiment when I was writing the chorus to Hundreds of Languages was just paying homage to all the incredible languages of this land and the fact that they are disappearing.

“Ultimately it is about communication and how language shouldn’t be a barrier to communication.”

That comes to the fore in the reworking of the song with didgeridoo player William Barton featured on the song and Jack Thompson highlighting the lyric “I hear a voice from the heart, it speaks to everyone, I hear a voice” in spoken word.

“The Voice is all about conversation. Mandawuy Yunupingu from Yothu Yindi, that was his whole thing, that was the reason for Yothu Yindi the band, was balance. The band was always half indigenous, half balanda,” Robbie said.

“In a literal sense, he just wanted to bring the cultures together. His band Yothu Yindi portrayed that in a literal sense. There was always half and half indigenous and white people playing music together in harmony.”

When it was first released as Hundreds of Languages the video featured a cast of high profile newsreaders.

“The song is about different groups talking to different groups and what better way to present that with newsreaders of the day and there was a little bit of humour involved in it.

“The song was the reason our third album Lingo happened. Often albums, you don’t know you’re going to make an album and then suddenly a song comes along and you go, ‘Hey, hang on a minute, this is great, there’s something here’.

“I was living in Darlinghurst (in Sydney) and I was just working on that chorus to Hundreds of Languages. I just wanted to write a song about all the languages of this wonderful country and how they were disappearing. Cal (GANGgajang frontman Mark Callaghan) happened to knock on my door at that point. He liked the chorus that I was working on and he just sat down and we pretty much finished the song there and then.”

Bringing the song into the Year of the Voice in 2023 was a natural progression for the band.

“It’s nothing new for us. The original Hundreds of Languages is still saying the same thing. Our involvement with indigenous people and musicians goes back decades.

“We just thought it would be nice to do a song specifically to help the Yes campaign.

“This country is mapped by songs, the songlines that network this whole country, and that’s all about communication. It is an encyclopedia of the landscape, it is survival, it is identity. It is all about music and conversation. How incredible is that. We have to protect that.”