“Hellhole of the Pacific”, by Greatsouth, turns colonial history into a feverish lament, a sea shanty for the dispossessed and the complicit alike. The song’s title recalls the nickname once given to the 19th-century port town of Kororāreka (Russell), infamous for its lawlessness and exploitation: a perfect metaphor for modern hypocrisies dressed in civility. The lyrics blur myth and reality: the narrator, a “beast” with “long beak no wings,” becomes a specter of colonial fallout, trudging through “gutter and gorse” while mocking the self-image of the “good Kiwi”.
