Very, very, sad. Another bit of my youth is gone forever.
"THE Go-Betweens have made their final album. They have played their final show. We let it rest at that, being very proud of what we have done." So said singer and songwriter Robert Forster yesterday as he mourned his friend, band-mate and fellow songwriter Grant McLennan, who was found dead in his Brisbane home on Saturday.
McLennan, 48, died in his sleep after becoming ill at his home in the city's Highgate Hill. The musician had been preparing his house for a party that evening. Visiting friends discovered him dead.McLennan, who with Forster formed the Go-Betweens almost 30 years ago, was one of Australia's most respected songwriters and performers, both with the band and as a solo artist.
Forster was full of praise yesterday for the man with whom he had shared most of his professional career. "The last six months was the happiest I had ever known him," Forster said.
"He was in top form. He was very happy in his private life and had just written an amazing bunch of songs. He was especially pleased with how well the last album had done. That had put a real spring in his step."
The Go-Betweens began while Forster and McLennan were students at the University of Queensland in the late 1970s. They went on to enjoy international success with albums such as 16 Lovers Lane and Spring Hill Fair in the 1980s.
During that time, McLennan wrote some of their most critically acclaimed songs, including their most famous title, Cattle and Cane, which was later named in the Australasian Performing Right Association's top 10 greatest Australian songs.
The Go-Betweens broke up in the late 1980s. But Forster and McLennan reunited with a new band for the album The Friends of Rachel Worth in 2000 and enjoyed a remarkable renaissance, touring internationally with two more albums -- Bright Yellow, Bright Orange and last year's ARIA award-winning Oceans Apart, considered by some critics to be their best work.
Former band member Lindy Morrison said it had been playing McLennan's songs "that made me shine as a drummer."
The early line-up of the band that included Morrison, Forster, McLennan and his then partner Amanda Brown fragmented amid acrimony, but the four were reunited in Sydney several weeks ago where, said Morrison, they were able to resolve some of their differences.
Brown said that as a musician and songwriter McLennan was "articulate, thoughtful, emotional and poetic".
Download 05_cattle_cane.m4a Listen to the Go Betweens classic Cattle & Cane
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