The Long Journey Home - Pat Drummond and Karen Lynne

This album is a celebration of the 8 and 1/2 years that Pat and Karen spent on the Road before the birth of Marty and Karen's little boy, William.

It contains 9 brand new songs plus 7 new duet re-recordings of the songs from Pat's previous albums which became favourites at Pat and Karen Gigs; All of which makes for an extremely generous 72 mins of wonderful acoustic music reflecting the journeys and adventures of those wonderful years.

With Lindsay Martin on Fiddle and mandolin, Martin Louis on Banjo, Dave De Santi on Squeezebox and Rob Frencham on Bass, the album was always going to be very special and very intimate. Produced by Karen and Rob Spenogna at Mainstreet Studios, Wollongong

Karen's intro says it all

Dreams
Words & Music: Pat Drummond (3.36)
For Cindy Maree Dunford and Tony Summers
Datelines: 28/8/1996 : The Golden Dog Hotel, Glenreagh, NSW and Forster, NSW : 1/9/1996
No matter how silly our dreams may look to those around us, they will always be the wonderful wraiths that bring colour and meaning to our lives. Karen and I are probably more guilty than most when it comes to harbouring and nurturing improbable dreams, however, whatever comes, I hope we'll never entirely give up on such irrational optimism. It's the secret of joy and struggle.

Amish Mourn 
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
In memory of Marian Fisher, 13; Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12; Naomi Rose Ebersol, 7, and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7
Dateline: 3/10/2006 Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania
'Just when I thought compassion had been lost without a trace, one vast act of forgiveness swept a world of hate away.' A song in praise of the extraordinary Christian response shown by the Amish community in the USA in the week after the gun massacre of their children in a Nickel Mines School. 

Calling Me 
Words & Music: Pat Drummond and Brent Parlane
Dateline: 09/10/2006 : Leura, NSW
There's nothing like a night under the stars in the Blue Mountains to put the concerns of our daily lives in their proper perspective. Perhaps it's our homing instinct at work, but a sense of wonder and mystery is common to all who have ever contemplated the night sky.

Eighteen Wheels
Words and Music Pat Drummond 
For Paul Hayman and 'The Clipper' and 'The Hamilton Family', Whitton, Victoria.
Dateline : 8/10/2004: near Hay, NSW
A song for all the commercial drivers who traverse Australia's vast inland distances overnight and with whom we have shared so many campsites and conversations.

Carol Lights
Words and Music Geoff Drummond 
Geoff wonderful hopeful Christmas Song written after an Adelaide Carols in The Park Event a few years ago. Children give us all a chance to recapture something of the innocence and hope that we often lose as we grow older. It was a wise person who once said, "We teach children all about life while if we are watching, they teach us what Life is all about'

The Bridge (This Tree)
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
For the Bundjalung people on whose Traditional Land this song was written and for the Dharug (Daruk) and Gundungurra peoples on whose traditional lands,in The Blue Mountains, we live.
Dateline: 28/08/2007 : Bar Mountain, Border Ranges National Park, near Murwullumbah, NSW
A song written on the southern rim the great Caldera of Wollumbin (Mt Warning) after a night camped at the base of an Antarctic Beech tree some 2000 years of age. It is a song in praise of the 'bridge builders' who have reached out between Aboriginal and Immigrant cultures. It also a statement of hope in our shared future.

Love and Irrational Hope
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
Dateline : 27/10/2008 Barmah State Park, Victoria
In a world torn by pre-emptive military interventions and terrorist strikes, it's  easy to forget the hard-won lessons of the great non-violent activists who have been my life-long heroes. A song written on the moonlit banks of The Murray River in Yorta Yorta Country after hearing a distressing ABC newscast from the Iraq invasion zone. My heart is always with the victims, whether they suffer at the hands of the terrorists or the military. 

The Darling Downs
Words and Music Pat Drummond 
For Marshall, Gary, Dan, and Prue
Dateline: 26/9/1996 : Near Millmerran. S.E. Queensland
In the all too frequent times of drought and hardship on Australia's rural properties, farming families have often been forced onto the travelling stock routes in search of feed for their stock. A song for a group of hardy travellers that I shared a campfire with on a balmy Queensland night near Millmerran.

Wildflowers
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
For Trevor Jenkins
Dateline: 26/05/2006 Leadville, NSW
Half the art of travelling is knowing when to stop. My chance meeting with Trevor Jenkins near Leadville, NSW followed a stop I made to investigate a 20 km line of mysterious 'junkpiles' along a stock route south of Coolah. It led to a startling conversation which challenged me to rethink my definitions of both Art and Work; and their purpose they bring to our lives.

Hearts above The Waterline
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
Dateline : 18/07/1992 : Nyngan, NSW
A song for SES volunteers and the families who have struggled with the impact of recent floods which seem to alternate with prolonged drought, making Australia a challenging place to live and work. First written after The Nyngan floods and performed during my stint as the musical reporter on  Hinch; this is it's first recording.

If A Man Is A Man
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
For Peter and Ian Scott. 
Dateline :10/9/1992  Dubbo, NSW
A song about honesty and integrity; two old fashioned virtues which played a major part in the development of our national character and which, sadly, have been portrayed in recent years as the province of the naive and the idealistic. 

Arrogance 
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
For our hero and inspiration, Jesus of Nazareth
Regardless of my own very chequered personal history, my Christian Faith has been an indispensable compass in my somewhat dishevelled life. This is one of my more intensely personal songs, which was 'outed' by Karen when she entered it, without telling me, in the Gospel section of the Charters Towers Country Music Festival Songwriters' Awards. It came as somewhat of surprise to to receive an award from a competition I hadn't even realised I'd entered! One of the constant perils of working with Karen.

David's Watch
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
For The James Family: Ballina, N.S.W.
Dateline: 3/9/1995
This is a song about the way our journeys often end with their beginnings; and about the way in which Time often returns to us those things we thought were lost. A particularly appropriate love song for this album, it is for the incurably romantic among us who still believe in the redemptive power of a patient love.

Spirit Of The Southern Shore
A list of 14 of the guiding national values that people over the years have told me were important reflections of our national pysche. I like to think of them as a short checklist by which we may evaluate how well our national institutions are mirroring our national aspirations at any given time.

The Bunyip Of Hoolighans Creek
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
Dateline : 18/07/1992 : Wagga Wagga 
An old but somewhat prophetic children's song, written after too many red wines at a improvised campsite on the Murrumbidgee River in the early 90's.  Originally recorded by The Bullamakanka Bush Band, it addresses the need to protect and preserve our river systems, as viewed through the eyes of an orphaned Bunyip who has been supplanted by the Myths of European settlement. 

Somewhere Down The Line 
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
For Steve and Lisa. In memory of 'Australia Calling' and all who sailed her
A duo version of a song about saying good-bye to the places and people that have meant so much to us during the last decade of our travels.

plus special burn of Pat's darker version of Love and Irrational Hope
(Banned by Karen from the commercial release :):):):):) as "Growly and suicidal"
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
Dateline : 27/10/2008 Barmah State Park, Victoria

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