“Cannot Buy My Soul” If you ever wanted an intro to the work of one of Australia’s most significant musicians as well as his music covered by over 16 of Australia’s most exciting contemporary musicians (from The John Butler Trio, the Waifs, Bernard Fanning and many others) then this is the album to get. Last night I drove through Western Australia’s south west listening to Kev Carmody as he led me in worship with the land, with tears in my eyes, and cries for a world transformed in my heart.

Kev Carmody’s politics are formed not so much by ideology but by story. The stories of his people, the stories of his ‘Comrade Jesus Christ’, the stories of the land. It’s these stories that are on the pallet of his inner world from which he paints with his guitar the beauty of his down to earth, haunting, uplifting, and moving soul-cries. Carmody is an Australian Psalmist par excellence and listening to his music is an experience of listening to the praise and laments of this vast land and it’s shameful history of violent colonization.

To visit Carmody’s website: www.kevcarmody.com.au

I’ll leave you with the chorus of ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ that Kev Camody and John Butler did at the Make Poverty History gig in Melbourne:

“They Taught us

Oh Oh black woman thou shalt not steal

Oh Oh black man thou shalt steal

We’re gonna civilize

Your Black barbaric lives

And teach you how to kneel

But your history couldn’t hide

The genocide

The hypocrisy to us was real

‘cause Jesus said

you’re supposed to give the oppressed

a better deal

We say to you yes whiteman thou shalt not steal

Oh ya our land you’d better heal”