Don Walker's third post-Cold Chisel album (and first under his own name) `We’re All Gunna Die` has been remastered and is hitting stores once again.
The former Cold Chisel keyboardist was the songwriting force behind Chisel hits like Khe Sahn, Flame Trees, Choir Girl and even more, but a decade after the demise of the pub-rock legends, Walker had released one album with Tex (Perkins) and Charlie (Owen) under the name Tex, Don and Charlie and two albums under the name of Catfish.
`We`re All Gunna Die` was Walker`s debut under his own name "because it was the first record that finished up how I wanted it," he said in a press release. That was back in 1995 when the world was obsessing over Blur vs. Oasis and Seattle grunge was on its last legs.
Somehow, 'We're All Gunna Die' feels at home in 2009. The lyrically driven album isn't lost in a sea of rock 'n' roll. It can exist on its own and tell tales that don't feel a minute older than when they were first told fourteen years ago.
Songs like the beautifully descriptive `The Wedding` is evidence that Walker is one of the great storytellers this country has produced. His stark voice sends chills down the spine as he sings 'There`s a ghost at the wedding/that no one else can see/there`s a ghost at the wedding/and it looks like me,' over Garrett Costigan`s haunting pedal steel.
It is this style at which Walker excels. He uses the sparseness of his brilliant band to tell a tale that grabs your attention and pummels emotion through your eardrums.
`I Am The King` is an incredible tale of a shipwrecked and broken man, the king of everything he sees who dies, leaving his girl to be rescued and become a broken woman herself.
It is followed up by the bluesier `Howl At The Moon`, which is the kind of song you can just appreciate the groove to.
The real masterpiece is the eighteen minute closer `Three Blackbirds`, which was recorded in one take. The tale of Harry Hunter, Sid Hadley and Frenchy D`antoine is dripping with Australiana. Walker`s ability to tell a sad, sad tale is nothing short of incredible.
`Three Blackbirds` tale of slavery is filled with characters from all walks of life, and Walker captures every emotion they must`ve been feeling as though he were feeling it himself. As he sings lines like `Gambling on the waterfront and Indonesian girls/consumed the gold of Frenchy D`antoine/the men they sold in misery were drowned among the pearls/and Harry Hunter drank his share alone,`you are no longer sitting at home, at work or in the car. You are there, you are watching it happen and you are feeling everything that they felt.
`We`re All Gunna Die` is one of the all time greats. Go buy this album, pour yourself a nice stiff drink and sit down with the lyric book for the duration of the record. At the end you will feel emotionally exhausted, a little bit sad, slack jawed and speechless.
Fortunately Walker is never speechless. That is why he is in an echelon of lyricists that few people in the world could ever hope to reach.
Tracklisting:
Party
Eternity
My Girl
The Wedding
The Good Book
The Circus
I Am The King
Howl At The Moon
In The End
Carless In Isa
We`re All Gunna Die
Three Blackbirds
