Author(s): HOWARD SHANE

Indigenous

Solid Rock is a big song. You wouldn't know that if you only heard the words and didn't hear the music. But you do get the idea if you read the words and see paintings of the place the song comes from. Where does the song come from? Uluru, the great rock at the heart of Australia. How old is Uluru and the presence that surrounds it? As old as we can imagine. Uluru is an Aboriginal word meaning permanent or lasting. Solid Rock is like a spear that struck and held. It's a passionate, angry song about the great silence masking fundamental truths of Australian history that won an enduring place in Australian popular culture. Thirty years after it was written, we still can't get the song out of our heads, not the deep rumble of the didgeridoo it begins with, not the guitar that comes in like a fast-moving vehicle on a desert track, not the singer's cry from the heart of his country.