Special Treatment

My apologies for not having posted since Sunday, but I really wanted to discuss a single songs, and really didn't have a particular song to speak of. I'll get back to this in a second.

A brief item of discussion. I finally received a copy of Yves Klein Blue's "Ragged & Ecstatic", which is even better than I recall. If anyone has the time or inclination, give "Getting Wise" a listen.

Now, the song I would like to discuss today is Paul Kelly's song "Special Treatment".

Now, I've done posts on individual songs before, but this one certainly deserves a special mention. I have one major problem with this song: It is not everywhere. There is no Wikipedia page just for this song. This song is not on either of the Paul Kelly "Greatest Hits" collections. To be reasonable, Kelly's other fantastic song on the treatment of Aboriginal Australians, "From Little Things, Big Things Grow", has achieved a great deal of fame, which it more than deserves.

The discussion of racism in Australia in general is beyond my capabilities. It is certainly there, and it has certainly been institutionalised until depressingly recently. I've met far too many people who are racist, many of whom I thought were intelligent enough to think otherwise. Racism is certainly a thing in Australia.

Now, Paul Kelly's "Special Treatment" from 1989 is a discussion of the treatment received by Aboriginal Australians at various points in Australian history. I'm not going to make any comments regarding the historical reality of the incidents Kelly describes, but they sound pretty much accurate.

What this song captures so well is the sense of injustice. The fact that, no matter what the narrator's family does, someone intervenes, always for the worse.

The music to accompany the song is excellent. The song sounds simple enough, a basic guitar melody, accompanied by Kelly's strong vocals. Throughout the song, more instruments are added, so slowly that you barely notice the original guitar is not alone until near the end of the song (or maybe I'm just a lousy listener). My favourite part of the song is near the end, where the instruments which have slowly been building up just stop, so that Kelly's vocals can be the focus, making sure that if anyone has somehow completely been ignoring the lyrics, they understand what has been going on.

The name of the song comes from a comment in a newspaper, in which someone claimed Aboriginal Australians were receiving "special treatment" in regards to land rights. Kelly used this phrase, used in an inaccurate, illogical, generalising and overall "bullshit" manner to represent exactly what he wants to say. This song is almost sarcastic in the chorus, almost as if the entire history of the narrator's family was playing out before his eyes as he read the newspaper article which contained the phrase "Special Treatment".

I know this review is rather short, especially for such a fantastic song, but I will make a brief conclusion. The reason I find this song so effective is because it goes directly to how much of the racism I've heard is rationalised. The main two arguments I've heard in regards to race are:

1. All the (race) people I've met were (unpleasant trait). Clearly all the people of (same race) have this trait! (Please note: I'm not even going to try to explain why this logic is bullshit. I hope you have the common sense to work it out on your own).

2. (Race) people have it so much better than me.

This argument has roots in the basic psychology of "my problems aren't my own fault." Racism just grows from here. Having an entire song explaining how how things seem can be a lot more difficult to comprehend than you think is exactly the slap in the face some people need. Thank you, Paul Kelly.

In this particular case, I'm not sure I really want some feedback (so that when I don't get any, I can pretend I planned that. Also, I don't feel there is much room for angry racist feedback on this blog).

H. Rourke