Surprisng that our popular country music has not become more political, if the diviseness in WA between city and country has anything to do with it, as well as the lack of caring professionals, like doctors and teachers and such.

We are getting a few lyrics about it, but not to the full extent. Take the plight of our WA dairy farmers who have never been so unfairly treated with the buyers sucking up to the consumers, but still refusing to give the Milkies much more than enough to live on.

Reckon the days when us kids used to practice singing while pulling the teats, or chasing sheep and cattle on horseback, even crooning classics like Oh Sweet Mystery of Life, which we were not allowed to sing with grown-ups as they read the written rolls as they clustered round the pianola. Of course, us with legs long enough could peddle the bellows, but a smack across the ear was expected just for even a murmer out of the mouth

Cows encouraged sweet crooning music, as when they gave us nips a loving lick, or a saddlehorse might contentedly canter along to the sound of a singing kid cowboy, or maybe the other way round.

But nowadays nobody much in the bush gets a look in. Especially in mining or money pit WA, where more a loud-mouthed sort of music is sung not to the mooey murmer of a contented cow, or the clippety hooves of a happy horse, but more out loud to the swish of tyres or the clank of tracks.

In the bush it has us all wondering whether the good old days will ever come back again?

But the biggest loss to a bush thinker, is the loss of togetherness in the country towns, the only togetherness possibly that of sport, but with too much of the emulated commercialised TV slickness of the city, lacking the old bush insight or commonsense, which was probably why the lecturer novelist Geoffrey Searle even back in the 1980's wrote that popular Aussie book called From Deserts the Prophets Come.

Bushbred

your post is typical of the populist ideology the article talks of - nostalgic for a past that never was, steeped in resentment of the city and a sense of victimhood.

The dairy farmers in WA were paid millions for structural adjustment. If WA consumers are now getting a better deal thanks to deregulation, good luck to them.

THats why its called Qld Opera

The article is sentimentalist at its extreme and certainly not applicable to this part of rural Australia. Certainly there would be C&W ghettos and some eastern towns consciously seek to turn themselves into C&W ghettos to attract tourists from the cities with their ironed akubras and shiney undented 4WD's. The article smacks of city slickers simplifying bush folk to backward and simple stereotypes to feel as if the 'bush' is some sort of Disneyland to take 'unsophisticated' refuge.

Where have you been plantagenet? There are plenty of Australian artist with a strong Australian flavour. You only have to look around to see those like John Williamson, Melinda Schneider, Beccy Cole and Sara Storer and that's just starters.

Country music hits reality a fair bit and due to it's simplistic nature of good old fashioned story telling, it's perfect for the family.

Cornflower, you need to take a better look at the Country music scene and see that there is a large female element and going successfully. To say that it's a male area is very much incorrect.

I was watching the review of the most recent competition to find a new country artist. The final heats were dominated by women. The winning male was very good and had to be to beat his feminine competition that were an excellent showing of what Australia is going to see in the future - very talented female country singers who were better than the men by far.

Of the listener's, open your eyes and see just how big the following of female fans really is.