Australia Is Creating A ‘National Songbook’ – What’s Your Song Pick? (Naked City)

Ask any Australian in the street to reel off the lyrics to our national anthem ‘Advance Australia Fair’ and it’s unlikely they’ll get past “our home is girt by sea”. If you happen to discover somebody who can recite the second verse, then you have truly struck the jackpot.

The tune might resonate with many Australians but the lyrics are by no means implanted in our national psyche. One Nation zealots might like to bawl it out at their ‘oi oi oi’ rallies, but conveniently drop the second verse lines, “for those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share”.

On the other hand ask any sports-loving Australian to belt out a few verses of Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ and you might be surprised just how many answer the call. When the world’s richest horse race on turf, ‘The Everest’ is run at Royal Randwick, the crowd who often number around 40,000, erupt in a spontaneous mass choir of “Hands, touchin’ hands, reachin’ out, touchin’ me, touchin’ you”. It’s a massive cultural cringe, given that there are so many great Aussie songs out there. It could well be part of the reason the The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and APRA AMCOS have recently joined forces to establish our first ever ‘National Songbook’.

The aim of the Songbook is to celebrate and preserve the songs and the songwriters who have helped shape our cultural identity. An initial list of ten songs have been chosen by a panel of ten including former Triple J music director Richard Kingsmill and current presenters Zan Rowe and Dom Alessio.

With a multitude of possibilities, it would not have been an easy task, as NFSA chief curator Meagan Loader was quick to point out.

Originally they were thinking of a definitive list but as Meagan explains “we then came back to the idea that this is an ongoing conversation. It will continue to evolve and tell the many stories of Australia.”

 

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So here’s the initial top ten and if you are interested you are encouraged to vote on your favourite song:

• Beds Are Burning (Midnight Oil)
• Down City Streets (Ruby Hunter)
• Earth Cry (Peter Sculthorpe)
• Friday On My Mind (Harry Vanda and George Young)
• I Am Woman (Helen Reddy and Ray Burton)
• My Island Home (Neil Murray)
• My People (The Presets)
• The Boys (The Necks)
• Treaty (Yothu Yindi)
• Waltzing Matilda (AB Paterson and Christina Macpherson)

There are of course many Australians, be they shameless cynics or cultural despots who would passionately disagree with many of the above choices and poo poo the whole concept of a National Songbook.

They deserve to be heard and already we are witnessing alternative ‘top tens’ on blogs and podcasts with nominees such as:

• Shaddap You Face (Joe Dolce)
• I Used To Count My Father’s Sores (Box The Jesuit)
• Redback On The Toilet Seat – The Disco Remix (Slim Newton)
• Funeral On A Spit (Lubricated Goat)
• Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport (Rolf Harris) (apparently still popular with some One Nation members)
• Bad Boy For Love (Rose Tattoo)
• I Don’t Like It (Pauline Pantsdown)
• J’Taime (Abigail)
• The Phillip Ruddock Blues (TISM)
• You Just Like Me ‘Cos I’m Good In Bed (Skyhooks)

Personally I would love to see a return of the pocket sized Boomerang Songsters, the much loved little booklets of song lyrics published by music publishers J. Albert & Son from the early 1900s right through until the 1970s When local radio stations blasted out the latest pop songs, from both home and abroad, in the 50s, 60s and 70s, they were immensely popular.

A modern version could contain not only the words of those songs enshrined in the National Songbook but a concession to those minorities who would rather eat cold porridge than belt out a version of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ or ‘Beds Are Burning’. There could even be separate songbooks, aimed entirely at the culturally disillusioned and alienated. For example there’s still a small but thriving post punk movement in Australia, a modern day ‘blank generation’. The pages of their songsters could be suitably blank, an open invitation to inscribe their own lyrics, possibly in their own blood.

And let’s not forget our political minorities like One Nation. Surely they deserve their own all Aussie songbook – albeit with a forward from fellow MAGA supporter Russell Brand. Admittedly it only contains the words ‘Oi Oi Oi’, repeated ad nauseam, but a fitting concession to the illiterate and ignorant.

Regardless of what songs are inducted into any future National Songbook, can we at least give imported anthems like John Denver’s ‘Country Road’ and Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ a huge miss – especially at major sporting events. As for – “Hands, touchin’ hands, reachin’ out, touchin’ me, touchin’ you” – all I have to say is Ah, Shaddap Your Face!