The Changi Banjo - A Gift Inspired by a Song and the Singer

At the last folk  festival back in July I was talking to Rob Durbridge and told him that I was going to make him a  Banjo that he could have on stage when he sings the Changi Banjo.

I love it when Rob sings that song and he has truly made it his own.

I'm posting a few photos before it gets handed over.

The body is an old tin pot.  I took a spoon apart and used the handle for the base of the bridge then wrapped the spoon around the tail of the banjo to hold down the strings. The frets are made from nails.

Here are the lyrics.

Timely with Remembrance Day on Monday.

Danny O'Connell

 

Well the old man died in the summer when the grass was dry and brown,

The long hard road he'd travelled had finally reached the end,

He was out on the veranda writing letters to his daughters,

When he heard the curlew calling and he just put down his pen.

Well he did two years in Changi in the big Pacific War,
He'd been to hell and back again somehow came though it all,
His most prized possession was the banjo that he made,
As he built it all around him he watched his comrades fall.

He'd play the Changi bango made of tin,

The bridge piece was the Rising Sun from off his slouch hat brim,
Had a broomstick neck and nails to pick his strings,
To the memory of is fallen mates, the Changi banjo rings.

When he came ashore in Sydney like a ghost of skin and bones,
No-one recognised the man behind the haunted face,
No-one knows the sorrows, only he could tell
Of how he's taking one last journey to rest with his old mates.

He'll play his Changi banjo made of tin,
The bridge piece was the Rising Sun from off his slouch hat brim,
Had a broomstick neck and nails to pick his strings,
To the memory of is fallen mates, the Changi banjo rings.

He'll play his Changi banjo made of tin,
The bridge piece was the Rising Sun from off his slouch hat brim,
Had a broomstick neck and nails to pick his strings,
To the memory of is fallen mates, the Changi banjo rings.

To the memory of is fallen mates, the Changi banjo rings.