Gurrumul’s Music Brings Tears

I cried today. I fol­lowed a link for a folk musi­cian I had not heard of before, and as soon as the first few notes of a song (his voice and gui­tar) started play­ing on his web site, the tears sprang up. I could not under­stand a word this man was singing, but my reac­tion was automatic.

Music truly is the uni­ver­sal lan­guage, for I found after some look­ing around that the song (“Bapa”) was one of grief for a dead father. The artist is Geof­frey Gur­ru­mul Yunupingu. He is indige­nous Aus­tralian, of the Gumatj peo­ple. Musi­cally, he is a mem­ber of the Salt­wa­ter Band but also plays solo con­certs. He was born blind, and taught him­self to play the gui­tar. His debut album is enti­tled Gur­ru­mul.