Eric Bogle to present a journey of his musical career at Cobargo Folk Festival

Legendary singer-songwriter Eric Bogle will perform two very special two-hour concerts at Cobargo Folk Festival.

He compiled the retrospective with some 40 songs to mark turning 80 last year. He has been writing songs and performing for more than 50 years.

Mr Bogle had originally decided to perform three concerts over a weekend in Adelaide.

“Musicians at quite a few festivals do chronological retrospectives but three concerts is a bit much so I have cut it down to two concerts, mainly to be acceptable at festivals,” he said. “It is a bit arrogant to hog the main stage for three concerts.”

Deciding which songs to include from a published catalogue of about 240 was difficult.

“It took me longer to choose them than to sing them,” Mr Bogle said.

He will immerse the audience in his creative process, explaining why he wrote the song and how he approached it.

Mr Bogle has included songs that he knows are popular with audiences, as well as ones he personally likes that never quite resonated as much as some others.

“Some have been my favourites all my life,” he said.

The retrospective shows that attitudes and social mores have changed. His satirical song I Hate Wogs is a case in point.

“Some members of the band are very uncomfortable singing it,” Mr Bogle said. “Even I am a tad uncomfortable in 2025, whereas in the 1970s I thought I was making a strong point.

“Even though the message is plain enough and hasn’t changed, times have.”

Mr Bogle is ambivalent about whether he has more songs to write. “Yes and no,” he said.

He would like to write a song about the massacre of all the innocents in the Congo, Israel and Palestine, the images of which he cannot get out of his head.

“I am not sure where I am going with it,” Mr Bogle said. “No one will ever listen to it, no one will ever play it, but I have had that all along my career.”

On the other hand, people still ask him to write about something topical or controversial.

“I say I did, 20 years ago, and people didn’t listen to it then,” he said. “Nothing has changed, and I have nothing to add.

“The human race keeps making the same mistakes, time after time after time. I have already said what I had to say, so you are frustrated in that sense.”

His last overseas tour was in 2009, with longtime musical partner John Munro. The tour lasted more than four months and they sang 92 songs.

“I still do stuff in Australia, but I limit that as well,” Mr Bogle said. “I have got to the stage in my performing career that I can choose what I want, and Cobargo is one of my choices.”

Mr Bogle has a deep and enduring attachment to community-minded and community-run festivals like Cobargo Folk Festival.

When he played at an early Port Fairy Folk Festival the main stage was the back of a truck, a flat tray in the middle of the town.

“Often a lot of the money raised goes back into the community, and most small communities need all the help they can get,” Mr Bogle said. “How can you not support that as a musician and a human being.”

Describing folk festivals as “the last bastion of civilised live music”, he said there is such a wide range of what is called folk music.

“If you don’t like what you are listening to, walk to the next tent,” Mr Bogle said. “There is such diversity. It is true value for money.

“At any folk festival in Australia, if you don’t find at least one or two acts that you have never heard and are fantastic, I would be very surprised.”

Music has always played a part in his life. Eventually it took over.

“Music has been my life for the last 40 years but it was never an ambition I had from the day I was born,” he said. “It was something I fell into, and I am very pleased I did.”

Tickets and more information are available on the Cobargo Folk Festival website.