Feature: Dominic Breen - Just Another Day In The Colony
Part folk song, part social commentary and part Australian fever dream, Dominic Breen reveals latest release Just Another Day In The Colony.
Sounding like the score to an outback car-chase, complete with rapid one-liners, wild guitar lines and a closing battle between Breen’s harmonica and the kookaburras.
It draws on a tradition where songs become something more than entertainment - a way of documenting history, challenging assumptions and asking questions.
A powerful new song of observation, storytelling and reflection Dominic Breen continues a long tradition of Australian writers and musicians who have used songs to examine who we are, and the stories we tell ourselves.
For Breen, that tradition runs deep.
On “Just Another Day in the Colony”, Breen turns that same searching eye toward Australia itself. The song explores the great Australian myth - not to dismiss it, but to examine it. Through references to Australian history, folklore and culture, Breen gathers fragments of the national story: bush ballads, heroes, villains, contradictions and symbols, asking what they reveal about the country we imagine ourselves to be.
From Waltzing Matilda to Ned Kelly, from colonial history to modern Australian identity, the song summons familiar images and asks us to look at them again. For Breen, songs exist as part of a living tradition - links in a chain, with each generation adding its own voice.
“Just Another Day in the Colony” sits within that lineage: the Australian tradition of poetic social observation explored by writers and artists from Lawson and Patterson through to contemporary songwriters like Paul Kelly, Midnight Oil, Redgum, Yothu Yindi and Goanna.
The connection became literal when Breen incorporated a lyrical nod to Midnight Oil’s landmark anthem “Beds Are Burning”. Before release, Breen and Double Drummer sought the approval of Midnight Oil’s Peter Garrett, who gave his blessing and support.
Like the best songs in the folk tradition, “Just Another Day in the Colony” doesn’t arrive with simple answers. Instead, it asks questions - about memory, identity, history and the stories nations inherit.
A new link in a very old chain.
Just Another Day In The Colony the latest release from Dominic Breen is avaliable to stream now via Double Drummer.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE COLONY