The Songs & Sounds of New Zealand’s Great War

Good-bye Maoriland:   

 

 

The Songs & Sounds of New Zealand’s Great War

By Chris Bourke  

 

978 1 86940 871 8

20^th Century Music, First World War

16 October 2017, $59.00

 

By the author of award-winning ‘Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn Of New Zealand Popular Music 1918-1964.

 

‘Chris Bourke’s Good-bye Maoriland is an impeccably researched account of the influence of music in World War I – from military bands and concert parties to Māori music and patriotic song writing. Profusely illustrated and highly readable, it will attract anyone interested in war and the cultural history of New Zealand’

– Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Christopher Pugsley, ONZM, DPhil, FRHistS

 

They left their Southern Lands,

They sailed across the sea;

They fought the Hun, they fought the Turk

For truth and liberty.

 

Now Anzac Day has come to stay,

And bring us sacred joy;

Though wooden crosses be swept away –

We’ll never forget our boys.

– Jane Morison, ‘We’ll never forget our boys’, 1917

 

Be it ‘Tipperary’ or ‘Pokarekare’, the morning reveille or the bugle’s last post, concert parties at the front or patriotic songs at home, music was central to New Zealand’s experience of the First World War. In Good-Bye Maoriland, acclaimed author Chris Bourke introduces us the songs and sounds of the war in order to take us deep inside the human experience.

About the Author

Chris Bourke is a writer, journalist, editor and radio producer. He has been arts and books editor at the NZ Listener, editor of Rip It Up and Real Groove, and producer of Radio New Zealand’s Saturday Morning with Kim Hill. He wrote the best-selling, definitive biography of Crowded House, Something So Strong (1997) and Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music, 1918-1964 (AUP, 2010). At the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards Blue Smoke won the People’s Choice Award, the General Nonfiction Award and the Book of the Year Award. Chris Bourke received the Lilburn Research Fellowship for 2015, enabling the writing of Good-bye Maoriland, and is currently content director at Audioculture: The Noisy Library of New Zealand Music (www.audioculture.co.nz).Chris Bourke is currently content director at Audioculture: The Noisy Library of New Zealand Music (www.audioculture.co.nz).

 

Footnote:

 

Chris Bourke's new book launches this Sunday at Devonport! 

Sunday 15th, 2pm, Old Vic Theatre, Tickets $10 at www.thevic.co.nz