Bob Brown’s greatest hit

One evening in 1983, Shane Howard and his Goanna Band did a one-night-only gig with other Australian pop-music luminaries to form Gordon Franklin and the Wilderness Ensemble.

The Ensemble released a single of their resulting protest anthem ‘Let The Franklin Flow’.

The B-side of the Ensemble’s single release was a spoken-word offering by The Australian newspaper’s 1982 Australian of the Year — who was then the director (and a founding member) of The Wilderness Society, and who is now Senator Bob Brown in the Australian Parliament.

Bob’s foray into pop greatness consisted in a rambling dissertation on Man-and-Science versus Arcadian Nature. (Bob seemed quite sanguine with then-prime minister Bob Hawke sending space-age F111 military aircraft over the Gordon-Franklin wilderness to spy on the Tasmanian state government’s nature-wrecking activities.)

My short video presented here is an excerpt from Bob’s Save-the-Franklin spiel, illustrated with images ranging from tranquil nature shots to vintage Goanna album artwork.

Bob’s spiel was bracketed with a mournfully untuneful kid belting out the chorus of ‘Let The Franklin Flow’, so in the video I’ve mercifully faded-in the Ensemble’s more melodious finale.

view at youtube

By the way, tech-savvy nostalgia buffs may find this link of interest.