Goanna have shared a stunning music video for their brand-new single, “takayna”.
Recorded live at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall last year, “takayna” is the iconic Australian rock band’s first new song in 25 years. It carries an important message – the release of “takayna” comes 40 years after the High Court Decision that prevented the damning of the Franklin River.
Goanna lead singer Shane Howard wrote the song in support of the Bob Brown Foundation’s campaign to save takayne – the palawa word for the ancient Tarkine rainforest in North West Tasmania – from logging and mining.
Described as ‘Australia’s Amazon’, the Tarkine rainforest spreads across half a million hectares of mountains, creeks and rivers that run to the Southern Ocean.
“A hymn to the natural world, to takayna… Tarkine and the palawa people’s long custodianship of that country,” is how Howard described Goanna’s comeback single.
“This is a great song and a good omen for the Tarkine rainforest,” Brown says. “40 years on, may it work the same magic as Shane Howard’s “Let the Franklin Flow” did in raising everyone’s spirits as we battled to successfully save the Franklin.”
The music video features beautiful footage of the Tarkine rainforest alongside shots of Goanna performing the song live at Hamer Hall.
You can watch the music video for “takayna” below. 50% of the proceeds from the single will go to the Bob Brown Foundation in support of their current efforts.
It’s not the first time we’ve heard from Goanna in 2023. Back in February, the band joined Tasman Keith, William Barton, and Moss to reimagine their classic song “Solid Rock”.
Goanna released the groundbreaking “Solid Rock” in 1982, a song that forthrightly took Indigenous rights to the Australian masses. Integrating a popular folk-rock sound with an important issue like land rights, “Solid Rock” found commercial favour, even cracking the prestigious US Billboard 200, a rare thing for an Australian artist to do at the time.
Goanna’s “takayna” is out now.
