Jackie's Song: Singing for Taranaki

One of Don McGlashan's haunting songs is set in south Taranaki during Titokowaru's War of 1868-1869. But it took a while to get there. "I had the bare bones of a song about two friends saying goodbye to each other on something like a battlefield" The Mutton Birds' lead singer says. Then, while reading The New Zealand Wars by James Belich, Don began to imagine what it must have been like fighting in Aotearoa during that time.

As the musician became lost in the past, he found a foreign field for his Irish soldiers. From an historical point of view this was a time of great conflict, also referred to as the Third Taranaki War. It began when southern Taranaki iwi responded with force to the continued Pākehā surveying and occupation of their land, while negotiations were still under way. Māori warriors were led by Riwha Titokowaru, whose guerrilla campaign of lightning raids alarmed Pākehā.

This was also the time when British Imperial troops were led by the colourful adventurer, writer and artist, Major Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky, called Manurau (a hundred birds) by his Māori enemies. After a series of humiliating losses, including that at Te Ngutu o te Manu, the Pākehā military machine finally overwhelmed Māori resistance and, in mid-1869, the decade of wars in Taranaki ended.

Don placed his soldiers in this bloody campaign, just after an ambush.

“A fine mess we're in Jackie

A clearing in the bush

The trees are all tangled up,

and they're the wrong shade of green

And the sap never stops running

The leaves they never fall

And the birds laugh like drunken garrison girls”

Don says these words talk about fighting in a land where nothing is familiar. "The idea of suddenly being in a country where nature never lets up, where the seasons are the wrong way round, all the familiar things in their countryside are not there, all the sounds are not there...

"It's not about the politics of the rights and wrongs of the colonists going on the attack, but just the predicament of the strangeness of being so far from home, so far from their landscape of understanding, their culture of understanding" Don says from his home studio in central Auckland. "So many people in that situation lost their lives in this strange new place."

“We were told there was a dozen of them

Runaways and injured men

They weren't supposed to put up such a fight

Now who'd have thought blood would have

So many colours

Soaking the grass beneath you like all the others

A spreading stain on the swampy ground

Till the next rain comes down”

For Don, the lyrics come first. "I work out what I want to say, work with the words for quite a while, and then start bringing in musical ideas." With Jackie's Song, he thought about motivation. "I wanted to talk about what might have driven these young guys to search for adventure. Maybe it was the romantic notion of battle and travel."

While reading Belich, Don learnt: “They [young people in Britain] had to get out of where they were - the conditions were atrocious - and it was the call of the King's shilling.” Don also wonders if music played a part in the pursuit of excitement. "I was interested in what place songs have in that ... that's why it's called Jackie's Song. I imagine that he was a guy who was always singing."

“Those old men singing back at home

I'd like to bring them here

Show them around, let them see what they have done

Where the sap never stops running

The leaves they never fall

And the birds laugh like drunken garrison girls”

Like the Irish soldiers fighting in a far-flung British colony, Don knows what it's like to journey in foreign lands. "There's a similarity between travelling around in a van with a rock 'n' roll band" he says. "You are really an outsider and you have a bunch of grubby guys to sustain you. You are always coming up against strangeness, new sights and sounds." But unlike the colonial soldiers, The Mutton Birds haven't had to face death on a daily basis. This is an aspect touched on in Jackie's Song. "It's about the absurdity of dying in a place that is so alien to you" Don says.

“Jackie I said I'd take you dancing

Dancing bright and strong

Jackie I said I'd take you dancing to your song

With silver medals shining

And the dust from a foreign road in your hair

Jackie I said I'd take you dancing everywhere”

You will find the haunting song on The Mutton Birds' fourth studio-recorded album, Rain, Steam & Speed, released in 1999. Don performed Jackie's Song at the 2003 World of Music and Dance (WOMAD) festival held in New Plymouth. "I suddenly kind of remembered where it came from and decided to do it. I'm not sure I will keep performing it" he says. "My main thrust is to write enough new songs so that when I go out and perform it's almost all new songs. I'm not very good at looking back."

Except when it comes to history, which he sees as necessary to move forward. The father of two believes young people need to look at where they come from. "In order to live in your own place, you have to know your own history. History is being written really well now - it's not just dates to learn."

Don has a short list of recommended reading for those wanting to learn more about times gone by. One of his picks is The New Zealand Wars by James Belich. "Instead of the soldiers just being statistics he managed to imagine his way into their predicament so they were real people caught up in the history of their time. Histories I read before demonised one side or another and made them two-dimensional."

For those wanting a ripping-good yarn, he recommends Maurice Shadbolt's historical novels, Monday's Warriors and Season of the Jew. Keith Sinclair's A History of New Zealand is also in the line-up. "I would really encourage people to go out and find out about their own place," Don says.

Belich, J. (1989). I shall not die: Titokowaru's war, New Zealand 1868-9. Wellington: Allen and Unwin/Port Nicholson Press.

Belich, J. (1988). The New Zealand wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict. Auckland: Penguin Books.

Shadbolt, M. (1986). Season of the Jew. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Shadbolt, M. (1992). Monday's Warriors. Boston, Mass: David R. Godine.

Sinclair, K. (1980). A History of New Zealand. London: A Lane.

Sinclair, K. (1957). The Origins of the Māori Wars. Wellington: New Zealand University Press.