Opinion
Ballads Behind Bars – music and hope in the NSW prison system
10th Aug 2022
‘They can lock the locks, but they can’t stop the clocks.’
Guitar in hand, I’m sitting around a table with a small group of women, we are trying to write a song together, and I reckon we’ve just found a perfect line for the chorus. The lyrics are flowing freely, there’s a real sense of collaboration, and we’re starting to get excited as the song takes shape. It feels like we could be at a high-school music camp, or a collaborative songwriting workshop run by a major music publisher.
But the women are all wearing matching green tracksuits and trainers, there’s an armed officer outside the door, razor wire is visible through the barred windows, and in half an hour I’ll pack up my gear and head home, while they’ll all be sent back to their cells. We’re at the Mary Wade Correctional Centre in Sydney’s West, and I’m co-facilitating a songwriting session for inmates as part of the Community Restorative Centre’s (CRC) Songbirds program.
Initially founded in the 1950s, the CRC has long been providing vital services for people in contact with the criminal justice system, and their families and friends. Whether it is help in navigating the NSW court system, casework and housing support, support with alcohol and other drugs, employment and housing, or in this case music and art programs, the organisation seeks to link prisoners back to the community.
I am a musician. I have been composing, recording and performing music for over 30 years. Toured overseas, won an ARIA, yada, yada, yada. And while I have had the occasional brush with the law (you know – sex, drugs, rock and roll and all that), I had never set foot inside a prison until I conducted my first workshop in a gaol over four years ago. And while all the usual tropes were present – the greens, the razor wire, the rattling of keys, the slamming of doors, the background malevolence, the very real threat of violence and danger – the overwhelming feeling of the place was just one of boredom. Crushing, dehumanising boredom.
In 2016, the Baird Liberal NSW Government slashed funding to education programs in NSW prisons, resulting in the majority of professional educators working in Corrective Services losing their jobs. As a consequence, inmates lost access to vital education and vocational training, and lost the opportunity for creative expression in a meaningful way while inside. So we’re here to fill the gap.
Typically, we’ll run a 5–6 week series of workshops in the one facility, just 3–4 hours a week, with small groups of any inmates who want to be involved. And there are always some who do. Maybe they played an instrument or played in a band on the outside. Maybe they write poetry or keep a diary in their cell. Or maybe they’ve never considered writing music before, but they just want something to do. Our aim is to write a couple of songs together over each workshop series. In the last couple of sessions, we take in some very basic recording gear (no internet connectivity allowed, obviously) and record the bare bones of what we’ve written together. We then take it to a professional recording studio, add extra instrumentation, and arrange, mix and master the songs for professional release.
Gorgeous country ballads from Indigenous inmates in Broken Hill. Hardcore hip-hop from Western Sydney that would put so-called ‘gangster rappers’ on the outside to shame. Beautiful harmonies by Islander women as they sing love songs to their children, their partners, their families. What is a song but a story? And everyone in gaol has a story to tell. As you would imagine, there are themes that regularly come up. Remorse and regret. Anxiety and depression. Promises to change, to do better, once the sentence is served. But there is always hope. And as facilitators, we see first-hand the impact on inmates as they realise they can express themselves in a meaningful way. They can let off some steam in a way that doesn’t hurt anybody. They can show a vulnerability and work together in a way that may not be possible out in the yard. And they can end up with a tangible outcome, of which they can be proud.
Tomorrow we’ll be going back to the Mum Shirl Unit, the mental health wing at Silverwater Women’s. We’re working on a song called ‘Kiddley-Peeps’, which is about their children (or pets, depending on who you talk to). There’ll be truth, there’ll be tears, there’ll be laughs, but we’ll get a good tune out of it and there’ll be hope, at least for a few hours until they lock the locks again. And there’ll be music while the clocks keep ticking, until the time is done.
The three Songbirds – Ballads Behind Bars albums are available to purchase online from https://songbirds.bandcamp.com/ or on CD from the Boomgate Gallery at Long Bay Correctional Centre in Sydney NSW. All proceeds from music sales go directly back into continuing the program.
The ALA thanks Bow Campbell for this contribution.
Songbirds facilitators Abby Dobson, Bow Campbell, and Murray Cook outside the Compulsory Drug Treatment Centre at Parklea
Bow Campbell comes to the ALA after 6 years in membership roles within the trade union movement. He was an organiser with the Community & Public Sector Union working primarily with ABC and SBS, and most recently as Director of the Musicians section of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
Bow previously worked at the Australia Council for the Arts, where he managed market development initiatives for the Australian contemporary music sector, and spent 8 years in various positions at Australian music copyright agency APRA-AMCOS.
Bow is an ARIA award-winning musician and has been composing, performing, recording and touring original music for over 30 years, primarily with Front End Loader and Dead Marines.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA).
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