Renegade Pub Football League

What does it mean to be a “good citizen”? The question was on the mind of queer Melbourne songwriter Cash Savage last year, as national debate over the marriage equality postal survey roiled around her. Until the survey, she says, she never felt any different from anyone else. Suddenly, in the words of her song Better Than That, every day brought another intrusion.

At the time, her partner was pregnant with the couple’s first child. “To be having a debate around whether or not queer people should get married and connecting that to whether or not they should raise children, at the same time as planning ahead and being excited about bringing a child into the world, [made] the cut a little deeper,” she says.

The experience fed into the writing of Savage’s fourth album, Good Citizens, with her band the Last Drinks, and when it came to making a video for the title track – written in about 10 minutes – Savage had an unusual idea. She wouldn’t appear in it, or even sing her own song. It would, instead, be sung live by a group of 18 men: the “Good Citizens Choir”.

The song’s lyrics are, at least in part, an oblique critique of the codes and rituals of Australian masculinity.… Read more..