This Monica Brown song must have been in a school liturgy I helped out with – they really wanted my son the drummer so I carried the drums and strummed a bit. You can hear a sample and buy the music from her website here. This song is written with Australia in mind but I love the idea of Northern hemisphere kids singing about their “southern land”, since we get to sing all the seasonally inappropriate Northern hemisphere songs.
I suspect a teacher objected to the “gonna”s and replaced them with “here to”s – I prefer gonna, which acknowledges participation over proper English.
My backing aims for a 60s girl group flavour.
Chorus
We’re gonna celebrate, yes we are,
We’re gonna celebrate who we are.
We’re gonna celebrate the spirit here,
The spirit of this southern land.
Celebrate it. Celebrate it.
Celebrate, celebrate, the spirit here.
Verse 1
In the outback town and desert plains,
You can feel it here, the spirit here.
In golden fields and rolling hills,
You can feel it here, the spirit here.
In rivers and seas and mountain tops,
In country towns and city streets.
It’s ev’rywhere you go, in ev’ry place you know.
The spirit’s here.
Chorus
Verse 2
In the people you meet on any street,
You can feel it here, the spirit here.
In the way we live, work and play,
You can feel it here, the spirit here.
In our hearty laugh and silent tears,
In what we hold dear to us,
It’s ev’rywhere you go, in ev’ry one you know.
The spirit’s here.
Chorus (key change)
© Monica Brown and Emmaus Productions 2001.