Whatever Happened To Election Campaign Songs? (Naked City)
Image: Photos: thewhitlaminstitute / Instagram
Whatever Happened To Election Campaign Songs? is the latest column (April 28, 2025) from Coffin Ed‘s The Naked City column – exclusive to City Hub.
Compared with the tub thumping, jingoistic, bad mouthing flavour of the recent American election, largely generated by Donald Trump, the current Australian campaign has been a low key affair – bordering on the mundane and the humdrum.
The TV debates between the PM and Dutton have been dreary, predictable viewing and the various Lib and Labor attack ads have lacked the killer punch of previous years.
Even the cashed-up Trumpet Of Patriots, who want to ‘Make Australia Great Again’ have failed to extend their Trump-ian inspiration and go straight for the jugular. Their leader Suellen Wrightson, who spruiks all their TV ads, presents more as a slightly stern school teacher rather than a firebrand champion of major political change. Surely a few Down Under ‘MAGA’ hats would not go astray.
So what is really missing from the 2025 Australian Federal Election? It’s a darn good campaign song – be it generated by the incumbents or any of their opposition.
We haven’t really had one since 1972 when the ALP’s It’s Time anthem was the tune ringing in everybody’s ears. There had been 23 years of conservative government and Gough Whitlam’s Labor Party promised an era of major social and economic change.
The lead vocal was sung by Alison McCallum and the chorus in the TV campaign featured a who’s who of the Australian entertainment scene – Tony Barber, Brian Henderson, Col Joye, Graham Kennedy, Dawn Lake, Bobby Limb, Little Pattie, Bert Newton, Terry Norris, Hazel Phillips, Judy Stone, Maggie Tabberer, Jack Thompson, Jackie Weaver, Barry Crocker and many others. Thank God that the sleazy Rolf Harris and his loathsome wobble board didn’t make the gig.
The song and the ‘It’s Time’ slogan was an advertising triumph and the ALP picked up eight seats to win a parliamentary majority and assume government for the first time since losing the 1949 election to the Libs.
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The lyrics of the song were subtle but inspirational, avoiding any nationalism or direct endorsement of Whitlam and the party. They included:
“It’s time for freedom, It’s time for moving, It’s time to begin, Yes It’s time
It’s time Australia, It’s time for moving, It’s time for proving, Yes It’s time
It’s time for all folk, It’s time for moving, It’s time to give, Yes It’s time
It’s time for children, It’s time to show them, Time to look ahead, Yes It’s time”
Campaign songs have long been part of American elections, with Franklin Roosevelt’s Happy Days Are Here Again from 1932 perhaps the best known of them all. Like many campaign songs in the US it was not especially written for Roosevelt and was in fact appropriated from the 1930 movie Chasing Rainbows.
With all the crass hoopla behind him you might have thought Trump would have commissioned his own campaign song, maybe given away on CD as a bonus with his Trump Bible. He made frequent use of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless The USA, a long-time Republican favourite, but it was the Village People’s YMCA which often fired up his rally crowds.
Many could not fathom why a song, previously considered a gay anthem, would be embraced by Trump and his often homophobic, hardcore, redneck followers. Some suggested that regardless of its original message, it evoked a certain nostalgia, in keeping with the whole concept of making America great again.
Needless to say there are many musicians who don’t want their songs associated with a particular political party.
At his second run for president in 1984, Ronald Reagan attempted to hijack Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA as his campaign sing-along. Springsteen wanted no part of it and publicly expressed discontent with much of Reaganomics. The song was quickly dropped from the campaign. Bob Dole and then Pat Buchanan also used Born In The USA in their respective campaigns, until Springsteen again kicked up a stink.
You can imagine a similar scenario in Australia if either Albo or Dutton opted for an Australian classic, like Jimmy Barnes’ Working Class Man or Paul Kelly’s From Little Things Big Things Grow – although both songs were played at the NSW Labor State Conference in 2022.
It’s too late now for any political party to plunder the Australian back catalogue but there is another Federal election in three years’ time.
John Farnham’s You’re The Voice is ripe for the picking along with Peter Allen’s I Still Call Australia Home. It’s highly unlikely, but with Pauline Hanson indicating she might retire from politics at the next election, One Nation could show some long overdue, self-deprecating humour by reviving the Paul Pantsdown classic I Don’t Like It.
Finally what about the millions of eligible voters who have to put up with weeks of overblown promises and poli-speak from the competing parties? Don’t these long suffering voters deserve their own campaign songs, some anthems of protest and irritation?
For this, I nominate Joe Dolce’s worldwide early 80s hit, Shaddap Your Face. Next time your least favourite politician comes on the tele, telling us how tough times are, you might like to sing:
“What’s-a matter you? Hey! Gotta no respect?
What-a you t’ink you do, why you look-a so sad?
It’s-a not so bad, it’s-a nice-a place
Ah shaddap-a you face!”
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