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AUSTRALIAN
POPULAR SONGS
WHAT ABOUT ME
(Garry Frost/1981) Moving Pictures
 "Days Of Innocence", the 1981 album of Aussie R&B band, Moving Pictures, featured many strong ballads that belied their live act. The biggest of these was the single "What About Me", which had been written by Garry Frost (right) who, at the time was working with autistic children in his day job. He'd literally gone out to get lunch at his local shop in the Sydney suburb of Annandale and seen a small boy not being noticed waiting at the counter. He was moved by the vision sufficiently to pen the song. It was rarely played live by the band, and when it was it was in a modern country style. It was destined to never be recorded had their debut album's producer Charles Fisher not heard Frost and Smith tinkling around with the tune on the studio piano during a break in recording. Fisher had Moving Pictures record the song against their better judgement as it was not the direction they wanted to go. "What About Me", with its classical sounding kettle drum roll at the beginning, stayed at the top of the Australian music charts for seven weeks. It also made the American Top 20. Moving Pictures were signed to the Elektra distribution label in the US and just as the song started to chart very successfully there, Elektra went broke. This was Moving Pictures only chance of making it in the US and it was shot. Ironically, the success of "What About Me" signalled the beginning of the end for Moving Pictures. Garry left the band in 1984, feeling it had lost its direction. Other band members followed one by one and they eventually disbanded in 1987, but their song that shone so brightly remains. It was re-recorded and made a hit in 2004 by Australian Idol runner up, Shannon Noll.
NOW I CAN DANCE
(Tina Arena - David Tyson/1997) Tina Arena.
 A flamenco-tainted shuffle that skips a merry line against strummed guitars and a sea of percussion. There's some delicately picked guitar that highlights the middle of this subtle, pretty, understated song that lasts nearly six minutes. It is about a performer who has broken free from the confines of a family that had questioned her abilities and motives. The song takes the form of a 'thank you' letter to a friend back home who supported her and helped her get her freedom, but who, in so doing, has lost her. All round, a delightful song that expresses both the up and down sides of moving on in life, and while Tina's not saying, I think the song is about her breaking free from her identity as a Young Talent Timer, a past that seems to haunt her and one she is desperate to shake off. The line "freedom I hold so dear, nobody knows me here" perhaps refers to her success in France where her past as a child star on YTT is not known. Her past on YTT was such a bugbear for her, she even named one of her albums "Don't ask", referring to questions being constantly put to her at the time about her child star status and its influence on her "adult" career. Tina was born Filippina (Pina for short) Lydia Arena on 1st November 1967, in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne. She is the middle of three sisters who are of Italian descent. Tina took singing lessons and at the age of seven began her career as "Tiny Tina" on the Australian talent television show Young Talent Time. She returned to the spotlight in 1985, when shed her 'child star' image and developed an international audience. The song "Now I Can Dance" is on Tina's In Deep album, which was recorded predominantly live in the studio in an attempt to bring the material closer to Tina's stage performance persona.
IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP (IF YOU WANNA ROCK'N'ROLL)
(Young; Young; Scott/1976) AC/DC
 Though I'm not one to condone the lifestyle that their music promotes nor do I have any of their albums in my collection, you've got to give to give it to these guys - they are stayers. What they do, they do so well and furthermore, they have been doing it for over three decades. This is one of their earlier hits and in my book it's their best as it is what rock'n'roll is all about. The lyrics are autobiographical, telling mainly of Bon Scott's (right) experiences from his pre AC/DC days when he was nearly killed in a riot by a drunken mob in rural NSW. But what earned this song the right to grace this page is the group's audacity to use the bagpipes in unison with Angus's wound up Aged Cherry Gibson SG Custom during the instrumental interlude. These lads were proud of their Scottish heritage and weren't afraid to show it. You couldn't dream of a more unlikely duo of instruments, yet they put them together and it worked a treat.
THE REAL THING
(Johnny Young/1969) Russell Morris
 "Do you know what I like best about all this?" asks its writer, Johnny Young. "It's hearing people say, 'Johnny Young didn't write The Real Thing'.' It's great that I'm so identified with Young Talent Time that they get blown away when they find out I wrote it." Young had already been through a few different careers by the time 'The Real Thing' became a number one hit in May 1969. He had his own television show at the age of 16, then became a bona fide pop star in the mid-60s with songs such as 'Cara-lyn' and 'Step Back'. By 1967, he had made the obligatory trip to the UK and was getting songwriting tips from Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees with whom he was sharing a flat in London. "You can't really get a better teacher than that," he says. "Barry basically taught me the structure of a song, where to put a middle eight, and the importance of a guitar lick that can serve as a great hook."
When he returned to Australia, John Farnham had taken his place as king of pop, so Johnny turned to songwriting. One Friday night after playing a gig with a band, the 21 year old Johnny started playing around with a few chords that were floating around in his head. "At the time everything was telling you to do this, or do that, because 'it's real'," he recalls. "I wanted to say no to all that - I am the real thing, you are the real thing, we are the real thing." He put on tape his ideas and by 2am had 20 minutes worth of material. Young intended to use the song for his own band, but Molly Meldrum heard the band playing around with it soon afterwards in the dressing room for Uptight, a morning TV show, and insisted Young give him the song for Russell Morris (right), who he was managing at the time.
"I give Molly 100 per cent credit for what he did producing 'The Real Thing. He can be an incredible bullshit artist, but in a studio he can be a genius. Considering the time and the technology back in 1969, what he achieved was incredible. It wouldn't have been a hit if I'd sung it. My time as pop star was over. Russell Morris was unique, like a Roy Orbison, and I was like a Frankie Avalon. The reality was that it was the right song by the right person at the right time."
'The Real Thing' became more something of Meldrum's creation than either Russell's or Johnny's. Russell just sang it. Johnny just happened to have written the basis for it. In the studio, using The Groop as backing musicians, Meldrum spent unprecedented hours and money to create a seven-minute production extravaganza, complete with The Groop's Brian Cadd reading from the side of a recording tape box for an imitation Hitler speech. The song was released to shocked radio programmers who had never been asked to play such a long Australian single before. It reached Number One nationally in June 1969 and newcomer Russell Morris was instantly challenging Johnny Farnham as Australia's pop king. Without any promotional support from Russell 'The Real Thing' even reached Number One in Chicago, Houston and New York, making it the first song by an Aussie outfit to achieve No. 1 status in the US.
DOWN UNDER
(Colin Hay/1981) Men At Work, 1981
 The song, which topped the charts in Australia in late 1981 and followed suit in the US and the UK in 1982, got its first spark of life from a cassette made by Ron Strykert, who played guitar with Hay in Melbourne band Men At Work. Mucking around at home, Strykert had filled up a bunch of bottles with different levels of water and struck them to come up with a percussive melody. The opening of Down Under is a reference to that tape. Hay got the idea for the chorus melody while in his car. "It was 1978 and I was driving down Power Street in Hawthorn," he recalls. "It just popped into my head. The verses and all the chords came a day or two later. It took about half an hour or 45 minutes and they were done."
Hay had come to live in Australia from his native Scotland at the age of 14, and he feels that it was his fascination with his new country that fuelled the song. "The chorus was coming from the standpoint of my fear and trepidation of Australia becoming Americanised and overdeveloped, and in the process losing its spirit. The verses were more the Barry McKenzie aspect of the song, and that thing where it's almost a rite of passage for young Australians to travel through Asia and India, and go back to find out where their families come from in England or Ireland or Scotland."
As for the famous line about the Vegemite sandwich, Hay actually did have a friend who walked into a bakery in Brussels and was attempting to converse in the native tongue when the guy behind the counter explained that he was from Brunswick in Melbourne. The song was "a lot slower and more dreamy" at first, before developing into the bouncy tune that forever became associated in Australia with the 1983 America's Cup challenge.
One day Hay was walking down the Santa Monica promenade and a folk band was playing it. "That was surreal," he said, "but it worked. That's what I love about the song. It doesn't matter what you do with it, it can stand up on its own. I play it in countries where English is not their first language and they have no idea what Vegemite is, but it sparks something in them. The song's been very good to me, so we look after each other quite well."
ARKANSAS GRASS
(Brian Cadd/Don Mudie/1969) Axiom
 Released around Christmas 1969 by Australia's first super-group, Axiom, this unashamedly American song was written by band members Don Mudie and Brian Cadd (right) and sung by Glenn Shorrock. The latter had cut his teeth as lead singer of The Twilights and went on to front Little River Band; Cadd was emerging as one of the best songwriters this country has ever produced. 'Arkansas Grass' was released as a single and one of a number of fine songs on the band's album, 'Fool's Gold', which rock historian Glenn A Baker has accurately described as " the first truly important and accomplished rock album". Telling the story of an American Civil War soldiers who'd rather be home than fighting someone else's war, its has all the feel of the period it portrays as well as being a protest song about war that were popular anthems of the peace movement of the late 1960s.
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Favourites
FORD'S BRIDGE
(Brian Cadd/Don Mudie/1969) Axiom
 This was another song from Axiom's 'Fool's Gold' album of 1969, also penned by Don Mudie and Brian Cadd and sung by Glenn Shorrock. Unlike 'Arkansas Grass', this was very much an Aussie ballad about Australian people and places - Ford's Bridge (the actual bridge is spelt Foords Bridge) being located on the Murray River and joining the towns of Wahgunyah and Corowa. The song tells the sad story of a simple young man who is devastated when a girl he secret admires falls in love with and marries a returned soldier. Unable to cope, he murders them both. The orchestration of the song close to the standard of what George Martin was doing for The Beatles and took Australian pop music of that time to a new level of excellence.
WHEN THE WAR IS OVER
(Steve Prestwich) Cold Chisel
 Cold Chisel, fronted by Jimmy Barnes, produced the canonical example of Australian pub rock. With a string of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s, they are acknowledged as one of the most popular and successful Australian groups of the period, although this success and acclaim was almost completely restricted to Australia. Their "Forever Now" album stands as one of their most technically refined recordings and still gets airtime on radio and in online video clips in bars and clubs. Drummer Steve Prestwich became the unlikely pop meister of the band after a penned a number of tracks for the album. "He's from the River Mersey. His old man played drums with Gerry and the Pacemakers and those groups. He was the drummer in the house band at the Cavern," says Don Walker enigmatically when quizzed on Prestwich's pop sensibility. His popular ballad, "When The War Is Over" is the only Cold Chisel track to be covered by other artists on numerous occasions since; first by Little River Band when John Farnham and Steve Prestwich were members of that band (on the No Reins album, 1986), later by a heavy metal band out of England, again by Farnham on his anthology of great Aussie songs and more recently by Aussie songstress Cosima De Vito. Dripping with emotion, it tells of someone's struggle to pull themselves together after enduring a difficult and heart-wrenching break-up.
I AM AUSTRALIAN
(Bruce Woodley - Dobe Newton/1987) The Seekers
 If ever a song deserved to be Australia's national anthem, this would have to be the one. It is very much the song of multicultural Australia of the last 30 years, as it focuses on the fact that the nation of Australia today is made up of people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds who have united as one to become Australians. The first time the song was sung by The Seekers, Julie Anthony was their lead singer. She apparently performed it on occasions, but when Karen Knowles replaced her in 1990, Karen sang it with Bruce (right) at most concerts. The following year, joined by Bruce Woodley and the National Boys Choir, Karen recorded the song which she has since performed at various events including the Prime Minister's Dinner for Melbourne's Olympic Bid. In May 1997, Judith Durham, Russell Hitchcock (Air Supply) and Mandawuy Yunupingu (Yothu Yindi) collaborated on a version of the song that was released as a single and used in an extensive government media campaign. It reached No. 17 on the national chart in June 1997. Around that time The original Seekers line-up re-formed and it is has been sung by them with Bruce and Judith sharing verses ever since. Karen Knowles' version appear on her album, On A Clear Day. There is also a scrappy version around by Rai Thistlewayte that used to be imposed upon telephone callers to Telstra during their wait in the queue.
ROCK AND ROLL [I GAVE YOU THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE]
(Kevin Johnson/1973) Kevin Johnson
 This is one of those ironic hits about a would-pop star going everywhere from San Francisco to London's Soho looking for his big break, ironic because at the time he wrote it, Johnson had never been outside of Australia. Johnson had already been writing and recording for several years before his first hit, 1971's "Bonnie Please Don't Go (She's Leaving)," which also charted in North America. He landed publishing and record contracts in the US, but both deals saw Johnson's success stagnate, with no real action. The sentiments of the song very much reflected his career at that stage in his life. "There was a lot of frustration because I was living on the smell of an oily rag at this stage. Because I'd signed with an American company I couldn't record here, so I didn't record anything for two years, which was like madness," he recalls. "There was frustration that had been going on for years before 'Bonnie Please Don't Go' and then two years writing and bashing my head against a brick wall."
Johnson wrote this, his biggest hit, in two days. "It was a quick song for me because I've spent months on one line. It just came to me one day as I was driving home, feeling all this frustration of two years without making a record. So I decided to write a song not about giving someone the best years of my life, but to write about the pursuit of success, which I thought related to a lot of people around the world, not just in music but anything. There are elements of a lot of things in the song, like Don McLean did with 'American Pie.' But what I felt at that time &endash; and I'll be damned for saying this &endash; was that Australia emulated whatever was happening in all the major centres. So when I said I was 'always one step behind,' I mentioned San Francisco because as soon as San Francisco was happening everybody here was trying to play louder than anybody else with flowers in their hair &endash; but about a year after. You can't follow, and that's what everyone in Australia was doing." The song struck a strong chord and remains one of the most memorable songs composed by an Australian. He admires some of the international versions, although he can't understand what French star Joe Dassin was singing, and was amused when Mac Davis changed the song's ending to a happy one. "There were a few people who wouldn't sing, 'I'll never be a star,' because in their mind they were big stars."
In spite of the strange adaptation he did of it for the AFL ("Aussie Rules I thank you for the best years of my life"), Johnson is comfortable with the song's legacy but says, "I have never tried to trade on it. A lot of people come to me and prefer 'Bonnie Please Don't Go' or many other songs to 'Rock and Roll'. So it's only one other song."
EAGLE ROCK
(Ross Wilson/1971) Daddy Cool
 "Some Negroes cut the chicken wing and do the eagle rock." That was the caption accompanying a photo of a group of dancing African-Americans which appeared under "blues" as part of a music-dictionary series in The Sunday Times Magazine in 1969. One person who took special note of that caption was Ross Wilson, who had travelled from Melbourne to London to sing in a group called Procession. "That phrase, 'do the eagle rock', stuck in my head," says Wilson. "At the same time I was mucking around with the guitar, trying to learn finger-picking styles and listening to compilations of rural blues from the 1920s and 1930s." He had come up with the distinctive guitar riff, the title and a few words before Procession disintegrated, and Wilson and wife Pat made their way overland across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, eventually landing in Darwin. They ran out of money, so he got a job in a hotel in order to raise the bus fare back to Melbourne. "I remember spending hours pruning bougainvillaea and coming up with more ideas for Eagle Rock, Come Back Again and Hi Honey Ho in my head, because I had no access to a guitar. I finished the Eagle Rock chorus when I finally got back to Melbourne in 1970."
Wilson remembers playing an early version of the song with his prog-rock band Sons Of The Vegetal Mother, but it wasn't until he formed Daddy Cool (right) later that year that the song took the shape we know today. Wilson maintains that even though it sounds like a simple song, "a lot of musicians find it difficult to play, because it's hard to nail the right feel". In June 1971 Eagle Rock went to number one in Australia and became an instant classic.
It is believed the song influenced Elton John into making a directional change in his career. "We got back from our first trip to America and we heard that Elton John had been to Australia on tour and had been telling interviewers that he liked Eagle Rock and Come Back Again. Not long afterwards he changed his whole persona with Crocodile Rock, where the thrust of the song is reminiscing about a dance we used to do when we were kids, and on the Honky Chateau album cover, Bernie Taupin [John's lyricist] is wearing a 'Daddy Who?' badge."
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