#colin hay
Poor video quality because it was filmed on a phone but these are my buddies Dylan and Wiley singing Overkillby Colin Hay at our resident hall coffee house tonight. Dylan’s actually using my guitar, I’m nowhere near that good though!
Write the Songs 2022—Session 1, Assignment 1: Be Here Now
Write the Songs 2022—Session 1, Assignment 1: Be Here Now
https://soundcloud.com/matilda-t-zombiequeen/be-here-now
Song #1 of 2022
So this is the first song of 2022; I’m still planning to snatch time where I can to backtrack and record things from 2021, but I don’t want to fall any farther behind and lose my memories of what it was like writing these.
So the assignment was to choose a song that has moved you and to write a response to it. The only…
Down Under
Performed by Men at Work
Written by Colin Hay and Ron Strykert
Ah, summer 1982. I was just a lad of seven years, and this Aussie import couldn’t have meant less to me. I had fractured a finger in early June, and the day I was to get the splint removed for good, I damn near broke my jaw. MTV was less than a year old, and we weren’t a cable household. So, music videos were still a rare thing in our house. On Fridays, there was an hour long show that played the top 10 of the week, and I’m pretty sure this one was a part of it while I was laid up on the couch unable to go out and play.
Down the line, I saw the fun in this song. Bouncy tune, flute through the refrains, and dude with an accent that came through in song. Moreover, I couldn’t understand half the words, between not having enough life experience, and the fact that it’s half Aussie slang. Those first two lines… I was a grown ass man still saying, “I have no clue what he said there.” Thanks to Pop Up Video and some Aussie to American translation, I got it. These days, I watch Aussie to American translation videos and I’m still fascinated. Merry old land of Oz indeed.
Colin’s voice is pretty distinct, and the few times I’ve heard him over the years (still playing the hits of his former band), I find that I still like it. And this song has really grown on me.
Lyrics:
Travelling in a fried-out Kombi
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
And she said:
“Do you come from a land down under
Where women glow and men plunder
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder
You better run, you better take cover.”
Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscle
I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”
He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich
And he said:
“I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder
You better run, you better take cover.” (yeah)
Lying in a den in Bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, “Are you trying to tempt me?
Because I come from the land of plenty.”
And he said:
“Oh! Do you come from a land down under (oh yeah yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder
You better run, you better take cover.”
Colin Hay with Gillian Jacobs, Scott Aukerman, and Paul F Tompkins.
Next year everything will come good…
