John Hospodaryk was born and bred in what are now the outer western suburbs of Sydney, but in his youth was a string of railway bush towns.

When asked where he had learnt the many tricks of his musical trade, John replies that, many years ago, at midnight under a full moon, he visited a lonely crossroads in the bush, and began to play his guitar and sing.

A dark stranger appeared and offered him musical wonders for the small price of...his soul. Although this story is obviously true, John refuses to reveal what he did about the offer.

Anyway, over the last few years he has been seen singing and playing guitar and banjo in clubs and pubs, mainly in Sydney and the Blue Mountains. He has also performed at various music festivals and cabarets.

He has been writing songs since the 1960s, but also likes to perform a lot of traditional pieces and material by other artists, chiefly of Australian and American origin.

This broad repertoire includes blues, reels, rags, bush ballads, bluegrass, country and western and rock 'n' roll.

An active historian and teacher who has co-written several books, this blues and roots artist approaches the subjects of his songs as he would any topic in history: by actually researching them in an academic way.

As an instrumentalist, he is mainly a fingerpicker, but also likes to play the bass-strum and clawhammer styles associated with early country music. He uses a slide on some of his blues numbers, which he attacks on a beat-up old National guitar. A guitarist of considerable skill, he has written probably as many instrumentals as he has written songs. In recent years his song-writing has become more politically left-wing, more stridently activist.

His music has been aired on various airwaves around Australia. The encounter at the crossroads paid off when he won the Maritime Union Song Writing Contest in 2001.

More about John Hospodaryk on his website - click here.

John Hospodaryk sings at Polish Christmas, Darling Harbour December 2005. Photo K.Kozek

The general may have languished in his gaol in the east,

But his fight for freedom had never ceased.

Gaoler, please bring me paper and quill,

No, I’m not about to be writing my will,

Nor some revolutionary manifesto,

God knows we’ve seen enough of those.

That old harpsichord you’ve seen me playing on,

I’m going to write me a song,

I hope it will inspire my soldiers in the field

To embrace liberty and never to yield.

A fighter for freedom in the old world and new,

Had fought for America and Poland too

Under the banner of liberty held high -

For this noble cause was prepared to die.

It’s hard to believe that this man at the keys

Had tried to bring tyranny down to its knees,

With a sabre and an army ‘gainst injustice’s faults,

Has now written two polonaises and a waltz,

But a song is as fine a battle strategy

As anything an army can do to make us free

But a song is as fine a battle strategy

As anything an army can do to make us free

Copyright John Hospodaryk 2006

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THE GENERAL'S SONG
Hospodaryk explains:

I wrote "The General's Song" after Ernestyna Skurjat of SBS Radio sent me a copy of a CD with three compositions by the Polish revolutionary leader Tadeusz Kosciuszko, hero of the Polish uprising of 1794 and of the American War of Independence.

He wrote it while imprisoned in St Petersburg. Unearthed only recently, the MS is a truly incredible find. That a major military player in the tumultuous upheavals of the late 18th Century decided to demonstrate his patriotic passions in this way is surely unique.

The music, comprising two polonaises and one waltz, is inspiring given that Kosciuszko's causes were sincere, noble and inspiring; he never succumbed to power play.

Why did I choose to write a song about this man? Apart from the fact he comes from the same neck of the woods as my own family, his name, Kosciuszko, bears considerable resonance in Australia, given that the explorer Strzelecki named our highest mountain after him.

John Hospodaryk & The Sydney Windjammers, Macquarie University, 27th July 2006. Photo K.Kozek

BUCKET O' RUST

This song won the Maritime Union of Australia Song Writing Contest in 2001, and a live version of it made its way onto a compilation album backed by that union and produced by labour historian and folklorist Mark Gregory, With These Arms.

It is a sea shanty based on an incident in November 2000 involving a freighter called the Bunga Teratai Satu. This flag-of-convenience vessel, loaded with fuel and toxins, ran aground on Sudbury Reef off Cairns. As if it wasn’t bad enough that it forced the destruction of much coral in that reef, the Minister for Transport issued this rust bucket a coastal permit immediately after it had been freed.

As far as the Federal Government was concerned, it was OK to threaten our pristine coast by issuing permits to ships of dubious condition and oppressive employment regimes. Because this is the Howard Government’s idea of being competitive.

Writes Hospodaryk: “I ‘ve spent decades picking up different styles of music. I thought a sea shanty-type tune would be appropriate for this occasion. I had to do my level best, though, to avoid making this tune end up sounding like Gilligan’s Island – one or two chordal variations did the trick, I’m happy to say.”

BUCKET O' RUST

Well hey ho, you land lubbers,

Here's a tale of a ship of shame,

A leaky tub that's manned by slaves,

And the Bucket o' Rust is her name.

The flag-of-convenience she flies.

The Jolly Roger of today,

With laundered money, contraband and drugs,

And a crew that gets no pay.

The Bucket o' Rust is a grimy old heap,

It’s a wonder she can float,

And if she sinks, you can't escape,

You can't launch her safety boats.

Her urinals are full of slime and scum,

And what's even worse than that

Is that the rancid food in the galley must be

Shared with the roach and rat.

The Bucket o' Rust is a great success,

She's welcome in our ports,

She undercuts our local ships

With her cheapness and her rorts.

Deregulated industry

Is her blood, her lifeline,

You can be substandard and be a sweatshop,

And the Government don't mind.

Well, sad to say, the Bucket o' Rust –

Could this have been God’s will? –

On the Great Barrier Reef she ran aground

With two crewmembers killed.

And it took 'em twelve days to blast her away

And free her from the reef,

And all through that time the oil she spilled

It brought the sea to grief.

It’s hard to believe but this story ends well

For this great heap of shit:

The Minister for Transport he saved the day

When he issued a new permit,

A brand new coastal permit.

“Our shipping must be competitive,” he said,

In the world economy.”

So the Bucket o' Rust continues to crawl

Like a coffin on the sea.

Yeah, the Bucket o' Rust continues to crawl

Upon the grimy sea.

Copyright John Hospodaryk 2001

More song lyrics, commentaries & political editorials by John Hospodaryk on his website, just click here.

John with his family