Speaker by Various Artists

Thank you, Stella, for that moving piece. I'll never see it, but I'll know what it feels like.

I wouldn't consider myself a Dave Dobbyn fan, but, like, how awesome was it that he got to sing these lines in front of the Queen and Tony Blair?

Out here on the edge
the empire is fading by the day
and the world is so weary in war
maybe we’ll find that new way

I just watched the tiny, tiny TVNZ feed from their website, and despite needing a magnifying glass to make anything out, I started blubbering like an idiot about halfway through, as soon as the singing started. If there's anything sadder or more beautiful than 'Pö Atarau', I'd like to hear it.

(One vote pro-Dobbo, btw. Terminally uncool, but really underrated. He just never seems to run out of those effortless, soaring choruses...)

Thank you Stella, much more personal than the perspective I got from Radio 4. I had regaled my kiwi/brit kids with the 100,000 figure of soldiers who fought from NZ in WW1. Will go and check out the memorial with them as soon as we can. I might be a pacifist but want them to have an idea of how war affects the global community.

What a lovely post, Stella, thankyou. I watched the news item on it and was very impressed by the beautiful design. Now, when's your next book due out?

One vote pro-Dobbo, btw. Terminally uncool

Not in this house he's not!

Thanks for this... I'm off to London this weekend...will stop by to pay my respects.

Would it work to have Dobbyn take lyrics from Welcome Home and Loyal and maybe refine them and add a few more appropriate ones to come up with a new national anthem for NZ?

It'd work for me.

Damn, I like Dobbyn, both as a bard and a person...and think he is one of our coolest musicians. He didn't used to be, neither Th'Dudes or DD Smash had any semblance of cool about them, quite the opposite, but he's grown into it rather well.

But if I ever hear Loyal again.....

Incidentally that was the record no record company wanted back in the day..it was independently recorded and distributed thru CBS originally

Thanks for that lovely post.

My father was in WWII, I remember vividly as a young child listening to him and friends talking about the war, hilarious and tall stories, and me thinking what a great adventure war must be.

I never recall them ever saying anything about death, dying or destruction, maybe it was all too painful for them, I wish as an adult I had asked but it never seemed a topic that I could approach with Dad.

Perhaps I'm a little bitter: a few years back in the pro-NZ-music community, it was more than your life was worth to mention you were a Dobbyn fan. That broad-appeal populism is never 'cool'. Just ask U2.

(I am also one of the three people in New Zealand who bought Lament for the Numb when it originally came out. I got your back, Dave.)

Hi, my name's Sarah and I'm the second person who bought "Lament for the Numb"--perhaps the third will show up and we can have some kind of reunion?

Big love for Dave. He's gorgeous and wonderful. And his music's not bad either...

Hi, my name's Sarah and I'm the second person who bought "Lament for the Numb"--perhaps the third will show up and we can have some kind of reunion?

I didn't buy it, but I did give a full-page review in The Listener, heralding its bold new direction. I didn't really get Dave's music up till that point, but he got me there.

Hi Sarah, Danielle. I guess I'm number 3!!
I think Dave's written a fair number of songs that have tapped a little too deeply into people's psyche, and turned into 'albatrosses'. I'd single out Bliss, Slice of Heaven, and Loyal. Curiously, both Bliss and Loyal are also chronically misunderstood. The drinking satire that became a drinking anthem, and the break-up song that gets airplay at weddings. Odd.

I still think Don't Hold Your Breath might be my favourite song of all time.

From what I understand Bliss was more Ian Morris than DD

I wouldn't consider myself a Dave Dobbyn fan, but, like, how awesome was it that he got to sing these lines in front of the Queen and Tony Blair?

Out here on the edge
the empire is fading by the day
and the world is so weary in war
maybe we’ll find that new way

Those lines always remind me of David Lange's Oxford Union Debate speech, which was such a strong advocacy of our right to determine our own course as a country.

I too can't stand the sound of "Loyal" any more, though that may be something to do with the horrible 80s knitwear flashbacks it generates.

I've written about this before, but after the amazing test match against the Lions at Wellington Stadium last year, we stayed in our seats for a little while after the final whistle, feeling the afterglow.

Someone made the brilliant call to play 'Welcome Home' over the PA System as we sat there with the stadium emptying around us. It was a very beautiful thing ...

and Dave Dobbyn is a beautiful man. I unashamedly say out loud, and proud, I love his music. Always have. Always will. The gig he did with Runga and Finn a few years ago was just the best, the gig th'Dudes did just recently just stunning. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have ourselves a National Treasure.

"Welcome Home" has been known to get me teared up too. I've always like Dobbyns music and actually like the original video of "Loyal".
I bought the album Cool Bananas and still maintain that it is a great live album.
Love the report of the Speakers Corner ceremony, we'll go there if we get to London.