I grew up in Marion when it was being gently wrenched away from its viticultural heritage. Grapevines were being ripped up and new houses were replacing them.
A new wave of intensive infill is happening around my parents, Marion residents, today and somewhere in my subconscious, this song idea emerged.
This is a nostalgic song. Hopefully not in a sickly sweet way because the suburb was pretty rudimentary at that time. What I have tried to capture in Oh Marion, is an expression of sadness and despair at what’s happening in other parts of South Australia, especially the hideous ripping out of farming land around Mount Barker with “little boxes on the hillside” being spat out at a rate of knots.
Where will our food come from if we keep this up? That theme will return in my Mt Barker song (it’s brewing), but this one looks more at the social cost of this change to the fabric of community. We are all living closer but we have shinier barriers – fences and cars that are much, much bigger than we really need.
I live in the foothills of Adelaide now and am amazed by the gully breezes most evenings, especially through summer, that have consistently brought relief to residents, no doubt aided by the hills face but also the rich filter of trees. When I grew up in Marion, trees fast became scarce. I just remember lots of bitumen and our un-airconditioned house had a black roof. Go figure.
You’d think we would have learned by now. We haven’t. By and large, most devlelopers and buyers prize aesthetics over making a light footprint on the planet, so they just bung up their rectangular boxes with blackness and glass, and run airconditioning 247.
I wouldn’t want to return to the era where we were the new people chewing up farming land for housing. Our simpler cars burned leaded petrol and the metallic door handles and seatbelts clasps tortured children through most summers, especially when trying to turn right onto Marion Road from Avalon Avenue amid cars banked up from the trainline before the overpasses were installed.
However, the “knowing” of each other, that is something that was worth treasuring. My dad knew every single householder on our block, and then some. That is the real heart of lamentation in this song. What hope do we have when big fences, bigger cars, and all-absorbing, addictive phone screens keep us coccooned in distraction, able to Uber in supplies when needed?
Oh Marion, indeed.
The Marion House My Parents Built
Some Of The Last Remnant Grapevines In Marion
Oh Marion Raw Scratchings
Oh Marion Lyrics
[Verse 1]
I grew up on the city’s edge
Where the vineyards stood
They cleared the land, my parents came
And there our house was put
The Kaurna lived here long before
Beneath the shady trees
But after they were flattened
We would pray for summer breeze
[Chorus]
In Marion the trees were tall
And the canopy was green
And the vines were wall to wall
With a few houses in between
But now the landscape’s pavement
And the cars park side by side
And we escape the heat
By spending summer days inside
[Verse 2]
I remember when the Coles New World
Was bright and shiny new
And they built a two road overpass
So more traffic could get through
I was six, I walked to school
Fourteen blocks alone
And then one day when I got lost
A neighbour drove me home
[Chorus]
In Marion the trees were tall
And the canopy was green
And the vines were wall to wall
With a few houses in between
But now the landscape’s pavement
And the cars park side by side
And we escape the heat
By spending summer days inside
[Verse 3]
We snuck onto the railway tracks
To flatten coins with trains
Then we crept up to the barracks
Camouflaged in concrete drains
We knew our way around those streets
Which were sparse and fairly bland
Developers saw potential
And they divided up the land
[Bridge]
Oh Marion, look how you’ve grown
Do you wish you could have known?
That there would come a day
When your community would fray
Closer houses, bigger cars
Have swallowed all of your backyards
And every brand new fence
Locks us into loneliness
[Chorus]
In Marion the trees were tall
And the canopy was green
And the vines were wall to wall
With a few houses in between
But now the landscape’s pavement
And the cars park side by side
And we escape the heat
By spending summer days inside