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A talking-blues ballad about NZ religious artist Colin McCahon.

Our boy Colin is pickin' fruit on a farm on a warm autumn day no bugger gives a toss so he bears his cross and just keeps painting away. "Forget those quotes from the holy scripture, doesn't even look like a bloody picture!" But he's never gonna play it safe it's gonna be a question of faith might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb fix your eyes on the great I AM Now will the cultural cringe or the lunatic fringe be the death of Col? Or will supply and demand in this promised land soothe his mortal soul? No point bein'a second stringer give the madding crowd a finger. Cos he's never gonna play it safe it's gonna be a question of faith might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb fix your eyes on the great I AM. Well the days slip by out at Muriwai in a haze of booze and verse while back in town the thumbs point down things just go from bad to worse. And the lie of the land, like a shaky hand, is both a blessing and a curse. Cos he's never gonna play it safe it's gonna be a question of faith might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb fix your eyes on the great I AM.

A song for a TV doco

This is an "art song" in more than one way: James Hall is a professional composer who was asked to write background music for a TV documentary about McCahon. Hall explained his song in this letter. "When I was asked to do the music for the doco I was, initially, quite unenthusiastic. My knowledge of McCahon and his paintings was very limited and I had not connected with his art at all. I accepted the job, none-the-less, and then, out of a sense of guilt, I had a chance to go to the Question of Faith exhibition while I was in Sydney. To say that I suddenly 'got it' would be an understatement. Seeing the works in their intended scale was an emotional and spiritual experience for me. I began to write my 'masterpiece', a large piece of portentous (and possibly, pretentious) 'heavy' music for string orchestra. Halfway through this composition I suddenly realised that, what I was writing was probably the very thing that Colin would have hated about art appreciation, so I tried to second guess what he would have listened to and liked musically. I then wrote this 'talking blues' type of troubadour ballad. When his daughter wearily gave approval for the lyrics after saying that 'The music troubled me as it was the kind of music that Dad listened to when he was drinking' I realised I had probably got it right." This is a singable version for folkies. The original song had six verses.

Colin McCahon

New Zealand's most significant artist, he was born in Timaru 1919, and raised in Dunedin. He studied at Dunedin School of Art from 1937-1939, but was mostly self-taught. He spent time in Nelson, then in 1953 moved to Auckland as Keeper at the Auckland City Art Gallery.

"Most of my work has been aimed at relating to this world, to an acceptance of the very beautiful and terrible mysteries that we are part of. I aim at very direct statement and ask for a simple and direct response."

He painted a number of religious works that placed events from Christ's life in a New Zealand setting. He was a Lecturer at the University of Auckland School of Fine Arts 1964-1970. He died in 1987, in Auckland.

Like poet James K Baxter, he showed us that religion is not historical magic, but a personal journey. He used elements from the Western Christian artistic traditions to give visual representation to the existential issues of the human condition; faith and despair, doubt and hope.

"My painting is almost entirely autobiographical - it tells you where I am at any given point, and the direction I am pointing in."