Backbone (The Desert Child) 2024 – Kasey Chambers

The Australian country singer Kasey Chambers is a frequent visitor around these parts. She’s back again with the title track from her latest album, Backbone. On this song, Kasey takes a nostalgic path, recalling her upbringing on the Nullabor Plain in southern Australia. I wrote in another Kasey post – Nullabor Song about this desert region, including my brother’s road trip across those immense arid plains back in 2023, which, believe me, was no small feat.

You can almost taste the desert air in this song and the music video below captures such beautiful scenery of the region. It includes photos of Kasey Chambers as a youngster with her family and friends. When it comes to country music, Kasey is the real deal – someone who has truly lived and breathed the life she sings about. Or as us Aussies like to say – she’s as ‘true-blue‘ and ‘Dinky-die‘ as they come. Even the autobiography she released with the album was called Just Don’t Be a D**khead, and has a 4.2 average rating on Good Reads (456 ratings) – which is nothing to be scoffed at.

I was introduced to Kasey Chambers through her breakthrough second album Barricades and Brickwalls and the tractor-beam single of 2001, Not Pretty Enough. And to be honest, I’ve never looked back. I’m a big fan, as frequent readers here will attest.

The part of today’s featured track – Backbone that really gets to me is the second line in the chorus, when Kasey sings ‘Wherever you are tell ’em my star will leave the Light on‘. That’s gold right there and even if you’re non-plussed about the whole thing that melodic turn should get the music juices flowing. If there is one thing that Kasey is amazing at – her knack for melody – amongst storytelling and singing – which goes without saying.

As the album’s second track, Backbone keeps the music fairly simple, but that simplicity works in its favor. The song feels personal and grounded and carries the same plainspoken storytelling and sincerity that marked her early records, especially The Captain and Barricades and Brickwalls, which is where many listeners first connected with her music.

Well they call me the desert child
I was born out in the wild
Ain’t never been lost to the Southern Cross
With a heart that runs a mile
While the train it waits arrival
I’d learn to read the bible
I remembered every word just to sing like a bird
And to whistle on down the line

Oh my backbone take me back home
Wherever you are tell ’em my star will leave the
Light on
Oh my backbone harder than stone
Imma go east, imma go west, imma come home

Well the only road to find her
From the tread underneath the tyre
If the fox didn’t howl it’d save us now
From the bid from the highest buyer
And our hair it grew like fire
Like Samson and Delilah
But the rust wouldn’t hurt from the dust and dirt
That we used to barb the wire

Oh my backbone take me back home
Wherever you are tell ’em my star will leave the
Light on
Oh my backbone harder than stone
Imma go east, imma go west, imma come home

At night the words were spoken
Will the circle be unbroken
And the voice went higher from the family choir
And the moon it played in time
And the boxcar disappeared
With a wave from the Engineer
And I always came back for the coin on the track
Cos it made me a millionaire

Oh my backbone take me back home
Wherever you are tell ’em my star will leave the
Light on
Oh my backbone harder than stone
Imma go east, imma go west, imma come home

Well they call me the desert child
I was born out in the wild
Ain’t never been lost to the Southern Cross
With a heart that runs a mile

References:
1. Backbone (Kasey Chambers album) – Wikipedia
2. Track by Track Review: Kasey Chambers – Backbone (2024 LP) – The AU Review