ANZAC Day 2019

Mother, Daughters, Wives
(Judy Small)
Danny Spooner sang Judy Small’s song Mothers, Daughters,
Wives on his 2007 CD of fairly contemporary Australian
songs, Emerging Tradition. He noted: “Often they are
victims of conflict, yet some women have been prepared to
hand out the ‘white feather’ to men who stayed away from
the fight without enquiring the reason. In this song Judy
Small suggests that while social conditioning might have
been the cause of past acceptance, many modern women
refuse to be stereotyped.
Lyrics
Danny Spooner sings Mothers, Daughters, Wives
Chorus (after every other verse):
The first time it was fathers, the last time it was sons,
And in between your husbands marched away with drums
and guns.
And you never stopped to question, you just went on with
your lives,
For all they’d taught you who to be mothers, daughters,
wives.
You can only just remember the tears your mother shed;
As she sat and read their papers, through the lists and lists
of dead.
And the gold frames held the photographs that mothers
kissed each night,
And the doorframes held the shocked and silent strangers
from the fight.