Australian Music

Pushing the boundaries

Australia has produced plenty of generic musical acts that would be ideal for dentists' waiting rooms all the way from Sydney to London. In addition to the generics, Australia has also produced plenty of musicians that want to push the boundaries of political and social acceptance.

In the penal days, Australian music was very political. Australians sang about bushrangers, Convict transportation, drinking and freedom. Some of that political tradition continues today with Australian musicians singing about Aboriginal issues, environmentalism, or their opposition to workplace relations laws. Despite the intention to disturb, the music is generally quite safe. Although it is not always suited to a dentist's waiting room, it is suited to a music festival funded by a local council.

While the political musicians have their fans, it is those musicians pushing the boundaries of social acceptance that truly make Australia an interesting place. Chief among these is AC/DC. For more than three decades, the great band has been singing about genitalia, jailbreaks, dirty deeds and booze. In the process, they have become one of the top five selling bands in world music history. They weren't; however, invited to perform at either the opening or closing ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics.

The Divinyls were another band that didn't target the dentist's waiting room as their target audience. With Christina Amphlett as frontgirl, the band sung with sexually suggestive lyrics, backed up with Amphlett's sexual persona. Like AC/DC, world success wasn't enough to get an invitation to perform at either the opening or closing ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics.  

Because Australia's most popular musical acts are not popular with politicians, and the politician's favoured acts are not very popular with the general public, it is difficult to say that Australia has a musical style enjoyed by all. This diversity of tastes has in turn influenced attempts to create a national anthem. For most of Australia's existence, the official nation anthem was God Save the King/Queen. Understandably, the anthem failed to unite Australians in the way an anthem should. As a result, unofficial anthems have been created to fulfil the emotional void. One of the first of these was Waltzing Matilda; a song about a swagman that would rather kill himself than be taken alive.

While the criminal songs held favour with sections of the public, governments were hesitant to adopt them. Instead, they embraced the more conservative Advance Australia Fair. The song sings of being "gurt by sea", and "being young and free." While politicians liked it, as did the ABC media service, most Australians found it dull. Even so, a plebiscite in the 1974 resulted in 43 per cent of Australians voting for it to replace God Save the Queen as Australia's official anthem. As for the other 57 per cent of Australians, they continued seeking alternatives that were more in keeping with the Australian spirit.  

In 1984, Men at Work released the Land Down Under.  It sang of an Australian travelling the world and having a good time. It was quickly interpreted as a proud celebration of the Australian spirit of going walkabout and subsequently became associated with national pride. Men at Work later claimed that their song wasn't patriotic at all and was being critical of Australia. It seems that when they were singing, "I come from a land down under where women glow and men plunder", they didn't think Australians would see the lyrics as a compliment.

In 1987, a serious attempt to marry the diversity of the Australian people was made with the release of I am/we are Australian. The song sings of Aborigines, Convicts, Ned Kelly, women of the depression, Diggers and the Australian Land. It has gained favour amongst a diverse sections of Australian society; including business leaders, football fans, Aborigines and immigrants. The references to Ned Kelly and Convicts; however, probably prevent it being accepted as a national anthem by politicians.

Australian music across time

1788 - 1950 Bush music-  J.S Manifold, 1962Histor

y and development of Australian folk music
" The first white men to settle Australia were London pickpockets, Irish rick-burners, and poachers from the Midlands, already the inheritors of a long tradition of folk music. With the Londoners, this tradition was overlaid by professionalism: missing the comforts of the gin-palace and the entertainers of Vauxhall and the Cremorne, the townsmen were at a loss. But the boys from the country found colonial conditions little harder than those they had left behind, and were prepared to go on singing in their ancestral ways.

 The Irish seem to have taken the lead. United by more than their chains, they sang in a whisper the old songs of Ireland. At the risk of flogging or hanging they sang the rebel songs too. The authorities called any criticism of the system 'treason', and punished it as such. But this never quite stopped the Irish from singing, and it never stopped them from making up new, local verses to old tunes. From mouth to ear and from ear to mouth, not always of the same nationality, both kinds of song spread through the convict settlements; and no amount of floggings could stop them. 

 As the country opened up, men could get out of earshot of the overseer once in a way, and sing the 'treason songs' with comparative impunity. They could even sing in chorus; and the chorus that grew up to the Ballad of Bold Jack Donohue was one that no proclamations could stamp out. 

 Emancipists, bolters and the pick of the free settlers pushed out into the bush where no laws ran, and took the 'treason' songs with them to sing there. One particular pocket that attracted these courageous incorrigibles was along the Lachlan. Here Ben Hall was born and killed; and his neighbours and friends enshrined his memory in magnificent home-grown songs. 

 But before this could happen, the face of the country had been drastically changed by the gold rush. Many of the gold-rush songs are anonymous; most of them that survive are the work of professional entertainers, Thatcher, Coxon and others- witty, topical verses set to current overseas hit tunes for use in the theatres and cabarets of the mushroom gold towns. They are seldom heard from bush singers today.

 Then the alluvial gold petered out. Many towns shrank back into idleness. Unemployment grew serious. Land acts were passed to alleviate it, but not very successfully. Many squatters were bankrupted by the Land Acts, and went off droving or shearing in the new outback. 

  Owing to the fact the cadets (alias jackaroos or narangies) were literate we know a fair bit about their singing habits. Living an isolated sort of life between the homestead and the men's hut, jackaroos sometimes amused themselves by composing and singing new verses to familiar tunes. 

Now a jackaroo song may find its way into the men's hut, but it would hardly survive there unaltered. The men were professionals, and considered the jackaroos amateurs. They did not share the same vocabulary or sense of humour. A song that had been heard from the homestead piano may be amended in the jackaroos barracks, might be re-amended in the men's hut, and may be passed to a travelling saddler or aboriginal droving hand in a condition recalling the axe in the proverb; "It's had two new blades and three new handles, but otherwise it is just as it was when grandfather bought it. "

 The men of the nomad trades, the drovers, shearers, bullockies and the rest, were great diffusers of songs; and in addition they composed their own. Drovers were particularly in need of songs to sing as they rode round their beasts at night. 

 Thus it comes about that the drovers not only borrowed occasional jackaroo-verses at times, but also preserved old bushranging ballads. The shearers too had a healthy taste for old songs. It was the embattled shearers in the strike of ninety four who hoisted the Flag of Stars and sang Wild Colonial Boy; and it was an old, old shearer in a Toowoomba hospital who told me: 'That's the way to sing Bold Jack Donahue, sonny; not sad, but with a stamp of the foot. 

 It was in the late 1880's that the first printing of bush songs occurred, but the first systematic collection was begun by AB Paterson in 1898. He published a first thin edition of The Old Bush Songs in 1905 and successive enlarged ones until 1932. Many contributors helped him, including ex-bushranger Jack Bradshaw. 

 Patterson made another contribution to our folk music too, quite distinct from this one. Several of his own poems refused to lie flat on the printed page, but walked off into the bush and grew themselves into folktunes. Some of Lawsons did the same. 

 Publication does a a doubtful service to folksongs. It preserves them; but it preserves them in a dead, like stuffed animals in a museum. It brings them to a wide audience; but this includes many of the wrong people, from school teachers to hill-billy addicts. The wrong people are those who are bent on taking the folksong out of its natural surroundings. Folksongs belong in the home, in the pub, in the foc'scle, in the back of a truck or on a friendly veranda; not in a list of set pieces at an Eisteddfod, not in the schoolroom unless as a rare treat, not between toothpaste advertisements on radio or television. In an alien atmosphere of the concert hall it takes a great artist to preserve the life and the spirit even of his own folk songs, let alone those of other people. 

 I sometimes wish, in vain, that we could keep up a strict etiquette that was observed by the real bush singers. A young man used to learn his songs from the acknowledged singer of the district, and might eventually earn permission to sing them to a limited 'public' of the bush whenever the acknowledged singer was not present. When the public performer of a 'treason song' might earn a stretch in jail, it was a point of honour to perform it properly. 

 Today I suppose all songs are 'song from books', and the songs from this book lose their old status accordingly. It would be nice to think that that the demotion might be temporary, and that they may walk off the page and back into oral circulation again over a wider stretch of the country than the old method could cover. "

  The band that never was - samples of convict music

 

BUSH MUSIC AFTER WORLD WAR II

Traditionally, Australian bush music was defined by its story telling elements and the choice of instruments. After World War II; however, the story telling elements faded away and were replaced by generic themes. People would sing about skinny dipping, drinking beer, or race relations. The instruments changed as well. Instead of lagarphones, banjos and bones giving the sound, bush musicians picked up guitars.

The most successful country music artist was Slim Dusty. Like many Australians, Slim found his inspiration in beer. His songs" Pub With No Beer" and "Id love to have a beer with Ducan", were not only hits in their own lifetime, but have also achieved immortality across the generations.

Following in Slim's shoes was John Williamson who first came to prominence in the 80s with the song "True Blue." Williamson is one of the few contemporary artists who is unashamedly Australian. He says he has spent his career trying to get Australians to listen to themselves.

Aborigines have produced some quality music. In 1983, the Warumpi Band sang the virtues of being a fair dinkum fella "Blackfella/Whitefella." The song's theme is similar to Michael Jackson's "doesn't matter if your black or white." However unlike Jackson's song which is mere pie in the sky ideology, the Warumpi Band issues a qualification that it doesn't matter if one is yellow, white or black, only if one is fair dinkum, if one is a "true fella, a real fella."

In 1983, the bush produced a throwback to an earlier story telling era when Red Gum released "I was only 19". The song told the story of a young man who experienced the horrors of the Vietnam war. The song begins with stories of the singer looking young, strong and clean. Later he tells of his mate that "kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon."

On the whole, Australian country music has lost its distinquishing characteristics. It has lost its story telling elements, lost many of its instruments, and now sings Alabama dreaming type themeses about how wonderful it is to live in the outback.

1950 - 2000 - Music in the Cities

In Australia's early years, the bush was held up as the heart of the Australian identity. As bush culture had been influenced by the Australian environment, it had distinct fingerprints that differentiated it from other cultures around the word. Furthermore, it has positive associations. People from the bush were seen as strong, adaptable, and free. By the 1950s; however, it was the cities where freedom was to be found whilst the bush was punished by draughts, fire and the harshness of nature. Furthermore, people from the bush were seen as uneducated.

Aside from the bush's newfound oppressive associations, the bush songs themselves had little relevance to changing issues of Australian society. Songs celebrating bushrangers were not important to a people who were not suffering at the hands of a corrupt authority. Furthermore, to a youth starting to feel sexually empowered, the image of four handsome chaps from Liverpool singing about love was more appealing that old bearded hermits singing about the nomadic life in the wilderness.

The new generations cast aside their didgeridoos and lagerphones (bottle top instruments) and embraced the guitars and drums of Great Britain. But even though the medium changed, strong Australian fingerprints still defined the music's substance. Specifically, a strong larrikin streak had millions of people throughout the world shaking their heads in bemusement at the peculiar musical style of Australians.

The unique musical charge was headed by the likes of Rolf Harris whose "tie me Kangaroo down, sport" raised suspicions that kangaroos are to Australians what sheep are to New Zealanders. Complimenting Rolf were the Bee Gees; an act of three brothers who wore trousers five sizes too small resulting in their voices being five levels too high.

Also wearing trousers on the small side was Shirely Strong; the lead vocalist of the band Skyhooks. Shirely was a loud-mouthed larrikin with a passion for surfing, womanising and practical jokes. His band's repertoire included "Ego Is Not A Dirty Word", "Why Don't You All Get Fucked", the leer on "Women In Uniform" and "Smut", or the sad man on "All My Friends Are Getting Married."

Finally, Joe Dolce took the piss out of his Italian ancestry with "SHADDAP You Face"; a novelty ditty that toped the charts world wide and has since been voted the worst No. 1 song in British pop history. This was an impressive achievement considering it beat Rolf Harris's interpretation of Stairway to Heaven.

Away from the eccentrics, Australia was producing rock bands championing working class values. The Easybeats proved worthy of their sire by glorifying end of week boozing with "Friday on my Mind."

The music of AC/DC had the strongest Convict themes since the early days of the colony. They reignited a sense of defiance with songs such as "TNT." They continued the Australian tradition of taking the piss out of the pompous with "Big Balls"; a song that equates the elite's quest for social esteem with a proud declaration of testicle size. They sang of debauchery with "Touch to Much" , female empowerment with "She's Got Balls" and explored the criminal element with "Dirty Deeds", "Sin City" and "Jailbreak."

Fellow hard rock band, the Angels, produced a sentimental song which included the lyrics "Am I ever going to see your face again." Australian yobbos responded by shouting the reply: 'No way, get fucked, fuck off'; thus elevating the song to icon status in the Australian music scene.

The melancholy that defined the early Convict music also remerged with Australian artists singing about the Vietnam War. Cold Chisel's "Khe Sahn" became an immortal tunes that triggered empathy for Australian servicemen's sense of anguish.

Both serviceman and footballers were the inspiration for Mike Brady when he created the immortal "Up there Cazaly" in the 70s. Roy Cazaly was a South Melbourne ruckmen in the 1920s and 1930s who despite his small stature, had incredible athletic prowess. His team mates, and later the public, would yell 'Up there, Cazaly' to encourage him to leap higher for hit-outs and marks. The expression entered the vernacular when used as a battle cry by World War II Diggers.

The 80s was a particularly dynamic era in the creation of unofficial national anthems. In 1984, Men at Work revived the nomadic spirit of wandering with the travelling song "Down Under", and inspired great patrioticism. Men at work later claimed that their song was being critical of Australia and wasn't nationalistic at all. It seems that when they were singing, "I come from a land down under where beer does flow and men chunder" , they didn't expect Australians would see the lyrics as a compliment.

In the lead up to the bicentennial, Midnight Oil decided that since Aborigines couldn't sing for themselves, they would sing for them. Consequently, they were soon singing for Aboriginal rights with their "beds are burning." Another 80s band, Icehouse captured the isolation, harshness and sense of eternity of the Australia with "Great Southern Land."

Gangajang captured the heat and humidity of Queensland with 'This is Australia." Even though most Australians have never seen "lightening crack over canefields" the song continues to resonate with them. Paul Kelly perfectly captured the spirit of larrikinism when he sang of "throwing his hat in to the ring.. and melting wax to fix his wings" as he does all the dumb things.

One artist, Kevin Bloody Wilson, even created his own genre. A hybrid mix of historical musings, humour and swear words, Wilson songs appealed to those who wanted to make fun of wowser moralising. Equally provocative, the lead singer of the Divinyls dressed in a school girls uniform, walked on stage without wearing panties and sang: "When I think about you, I touch myself. oou! oou! oou! arhhhhhhh."

In the 90s, Australia has also produced its fair share generic acts which have gained huge international sales, but have not achieved immortality across the generations. As such generic acts try hard not to offend, they were chosen for the musical scores representing Australia at the Sydney Olympics. Curiously, they failed to capture the prevailing larrikin vibe of the games and sales were disappointing. As well as failing at the time, it seems history has provided no redemption for nowadays the songs are never heard.

To mark the beginning of the naughties, The Tenants released "You Shit Me to Tears"; a catchy tune expressing frustration at all the complainers of the world. It includes the line: "I'd love to shove your face into a barb wire fence, but then you'd probably tell me all about it."

Chris Franklin also expressed frustration with complainers with "Bloke"; a bold declaration that Australian men will not apologise for being Australian men. It contains lyrical gems like "Yesterday I lied, But all me mates gave me a real good alibi, Thanks guys, (No worries, mate)." Although it reached number one the pop chats, the music industry's tall poppy syndrome reared its ugly head and it received almost no radio play. Even on top 40 countdowns it was omitted.