Defiantly Deborah
Deborah Conway speaks with Sharyn Kolieb about her memoir Book of Life and on standing up to antisemitism.
In Deborah Conway’s revealing memoir, Book of Life, she takes us behind the scenes of the journey that led her to become one of Australia’s most iconic musicians.
It starts with her childhood growing up in a traditional Jewish home in Toorak and mentions that her father changed his name from Cohen to Conway to avoid antisemitism. It traces her joining her first band and how her music evolved with her second band Do.Ré.Mi, then follows her becoming a solo artist winning accolades for her albums String of Pearls and Bitch Epic, including an ARIA award for Best Female Artist in 1992, and then details her musical adventures with her husband Willy Zygier, with whom she has three daughters.
Along the way, she shares stories from the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll music scene of the ’80s and ’90s in Sydney, London and LA. She reflects on the celebrities that travelled along her journey including Renee Geyer and Paul Kelly and describes what it was like to work with Jewish music mogul Michael Gudinski at Mushroom Records. Conway also highlights the ways in which record companies have taken advantage of artists and writes how the advent of the internet and changes in music production enabled her to carve out her independence in the music industry.
In her memoir, Conway also reflects on her Jewish identity, and how her interest in connecting with that part of her was renewed after many years of living abroad. She writes, “After a period of debauched, godless years of indulgence, decadence … I found myself yearning for this foundational element to be back in my life.” She later adds, “By the time I met Willy I had acknowledged that my Jewishness was an inherent part of me, not fashionable, and not even based on a fundamental belief in G-d, but bound up in the ancient and compelling story with many facets, a story I was ignoring at my peril.” Many of the songs she has written with Zygier have Jewish references.
Photo: Hector Clark
Conway also discusses travelling to Israel and her thoughts on the conflict. She writes, “The history of the Jews indicates they can’t afford to lose; that as a minority without a state and without the ability to mount a defence, the Jews are subject to persecution and worse; it has happened over and over and again and it is still happening.”
These words, written before the October 7 massacre of Israelis and Israel’s subsequent war on Hamas, were prescient.
Following Hamas’s assault on October 7 in which Israelis were murdered, raped and kidnapped, Conway has been one of the most vocal Australian artists to speak out against Hamas’s atrocities. She has faced calls to be boycotted including a petition to the Perth Festival to demand Conway be dropped from the event, and has been doxxed for being part of a WhatsApp group of Jewish creatives, a group formed in response to antisemitism in the arts community – whose chat was leaked to the public.
Speaking to The AJN, Conway explained how this has impacted her. “It’s not pleasant,” she said, but given so many people have justified the atrocities of Hamas “those justifications needed to be challenged”.
When I described her decision to wear a large Star of the David and dress in blue and white at the Mushroom Records 50th anniversary concert as brave, Conway commented, “I don’t know that I felt brave so much as it felt like something I had to do.”
Regarding the October 7 massacre Conway said, “Israel not only has the right to defend its citizens, it has a duty. War is awful. The death of innocent civilians, particularly babies, is absolutely awful. But who is responsible for these awful deaths? Hamas, who uses its civilian population as human shields, shooting rockets from schools, hospitals; Hamas who hide terror tunnels and weapons under mosques and playgrounds; Hamas who continue to hold kidnapped Israeli hostages; Hamas who has vowed to commit October 7 again and again and again.”
Conway is currently touring Australia. Asked what the audience can expect from her shows, she said that she and Zygier wrote a “theatrical musical distillation of the memoir called Songs from the Book of Life” – with eight scenes around eight songs. Conway added, “It’s a most unusual performance for us and truly original when it comes to rendering a life story on stage.” She has seen the audience laugh and cry. “It’s hitting a very solid spot for people … surprising, confronting and funny.”
Conway’s memoir is a brilliant read in its raw honesty about the highs and lows of the music industry. It is also vulnerable in sharing personal stories about her family life. While she is reflective of her past, Conway remains full of passion and conviction as she enters her next chapter in the book of life.
Book of Life is available now, and for tickets to shows visit: deborahconway.com/gigs
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