Author: John Shortis

Please note that we did no Out of the Cabinet show for 1981. Somehow when the Cabinet Papers release changed from one a year to two a year, it was omitted. So I’ve written this as if we did it, so that there is no break in the timeline of essays.

QUICK FACTS

1981 was the year when the dangers of passive smoking were becoming evident, with experts claiming that it caused somewhere between a third to half of the effect of direct smoking.

And still on health, the CSIRO announced that 60-70% of lead in topsoil came from petrol. The petroleum industry disagreed, claiming that the peak scientific organisation had wildly overestimated it, and that the looming change to unleaded petrol was unnecessary.

But with the cost of the dreaded fuel rising from 37c to 37.5 cents per litre, there was a growing shift towards smaller cars, like the Mitsubishi Sigma, which you could purchase for $5,999. Despite this, the 4 millionth Holden car left the GMH assembly line that year.

If you preferred public transport, and you were in Sydney, you would have had to buy your ticket from the driver, or a kerbside ticket-seller, as bus conductors became a thing of the past.

So to the banks- with interest rates rising from 11.5% to 12.5%, long established banks were merging to form Westpac and the National Australia Bank.

It was enough to drive you to drink, which you could achieve quite cheaply by buying yourself a wine cask at just over $1 a litre. But it seems that the world hadn’t yet caught up with this accessible invention from Down Under, because at an Australian Government reception at Davos, in Switzerland, the menu consisted of seafood, beer and cask wine. The only problem was that the Swiss waiters couldn’t work out how to get wine out of a cardboard box so the Aussie diplomats had to come down a peg or two and show them how it was done.

After downing all 4 litres you could probably do with a visit to the doctor, which would set you back $14. And if the doctor suggested you look at an alternative method of relaxation, you could always turn to the Sydney Morning Herald which, in May 1981, published its 10,000th cryptic crossword, a milestone indeed.

All this at a time when the average wage was $315 a week, and the average price of electricity was $6.63 a week. You could get yourself a tube of Colgate toothpaste for 69c, a packet of Blue Omo for $1.19., and a plastic rubbish bin for $6.50. The bin of course had no wheels, and was not provided by the council.

1981 was the year when a referendum was held in Tasmania to vote for whether or not the Franklin Dam should be built. The questions on the ballot paper gave voters choices as to where the dam should be situated, not whether they approved or not. So 45% voted informally, writing ‘No Dams’ on their ballot papers.

And more and more people were taping music off FM radio, so much so that a levy on blank cassette tapes was advocated. Whether your cassettes were illegal or legal, you could listen to them on your brand new Sony Walkman, while you were perambulating.

WIRED FOR SOUND

I like small speakers
I like tall speakers
If they’ve music they’re wired for sound
Walking about with a head full of music
Cassette in my pocket and I’m gonna use it
Stereo
Out on the street, you know
Oh oh whoa oh oh whoa oh oh

Into the car, go to work and I’m cruising
I never think that I’ll blow all my fuses
Traffic flows
Into the breakfast show.

Wired For Sound was a big hit for Cliff Richard in 1981, making it to number 1 here in Australia. By then, Cliff had had hits in every decade since the fifties, and this was one of his eighties’ efforts.

Power from the needle to the plastic
AM, FM, I feel so ecstatic now
It’s music I’ve found
And I’m wired for sound
I was a small boy who don’t like his toys
I could not wait to get wired for sound.

The Walkman was created by Sony, first released in 1979, so quite the thing by ’81. These days the sight of someone walking around or sitting in a train with headphones on is ubiquitous, but back in the day, Cliff was singing of the latest technology.

I like small speakers
I like tall speakers
If they’ve music they’re wired for sound.

 BETTE DAVIS EYES

Her hair is Harlow gold
Her lips are sweet surprise
Her hands are never cold
She’s got Bette Davis eyes

She’ll turn her music on you
You won’t have to think twice
She’s pure as New York snow
She’s got Bette Davis eyes.

Jackie DeShannon is a prolific American singer-songwriter with a string of credits including When You Walk in the Room, made famous by The Searchers in the sixties.

Some years later, after watching Hollywood legend Bette Davis starring in the classic movie, Now Voyager, she co-wrote a song called Bette Davis Eyes. Her recording of the song had a jazzy, bluesy swing, and went pretty well unnoticed.

DeShannon’s co-writer, Donna Weiss, a backing singer for the likes of Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan and Ry Cooder, sent the song to husky-voiced session singer and songwriter, Kim Carnes. With her band and her producer, Carnes threw the song up in the air and rearranged it as a darker contemporary synthesiser-driven track, recorded in one take.

I’m a big fan of the mondegreen, and the producer of this new version of Bette Davis Eyes perpetuated a beauty when he misheard the line ‘She knows just what it takes to make a crow blush’. He thought it was ‘to make a pro blush’, quite a different meaning.

She’ll unease you
All the better just to please you
She’s precocious
And she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush
She got Greta Garbo stand off sighs
She’s got Bette Davis eyes.

Bette Davis herself loved the song, writing in her memoir:

It was a thrill to become a part of the rock generation.

She actually wrote to all involved to tell them this, and Carnes visited the actress at her home a number of times.

She’ll let you take her home
It whets her appetite
She’ll lay you on her throne
She’s got Bette Davis eyes.

The track has a local connection, in that the video clip was directed by an Aussie, Russell Mulcahy, and his creative effort, which was huge on MTV, helped get the song to number 1 in Australia, and around the world, one of the big hits of 1981.

She’ll tease you
She’ll unease you
Just to please you
She’s got Bette Davis eyes.

GUILTY

After their disco successes, The Bee Gees were moving towards projects beyond the confines of the group. When asked in a newspaper interview who they’d most like to work with, they unanimously went for Barbra Streisand. Her people saw the article, and spoke to The Bee Gees’ people.

Streisand was looking for a way to put out a contemporary album that took her away from the Broadway orientation of much of her work. So Barry, Robin and Maurice sent her five songs which she liked so much she asked for five more.

The big hit on the ensuing album, Guilty, was written by all three Bee Gees, and recorded as a duet with Barry.

And we got nothing to be guilty of
Our love will climb any mountain near or far, we are
And we never let it end
We are devotion
And we got nothing to be sorry for
Our love is one in a million
Eyes can see that we got a highway to the sky
Don’t wanna hear your goodbye.

Barbra and Barry weren’t the only ones to have nothing to be guilty of in 1981.

John Hinckley Junior, obsessed with actor Jodie Foster, had written Foster a love note threatening to kill newly inaugurated President Reagan if she didn’t love him. She didn’t, and his subsequent assassination attempt wounded the president and three others.

Foster had played a teenage prostitute in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver which was due to be aired on Channel 7 just a few days after the incident. The viewing was promptly cancelled by the Broadcasting Tribunal.

Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

And he’s got nothing to be guilty of.

Other assassination attempts that year did result in persons being found guilty. Pope John Paul II was riding in a Fiat Popemobile which had just arrived at St. Peter’s Square at Vatican City, when Mehmet Ali Ağca fired 4 shots at him, causing severe blood loss. Ağca was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, though the Pope forgave him.

A group of assassins was responsible for the killing of Egypt’s President Sadat in 1981. Each were tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad.

And in The Mall in London, six blanks were fired at the Queen at the Trooping of the Colour, while she was riding her 19-year-old horse, Burmese, but monarch and horse were unharmed. The perpetrator was Marcus Sarjeant, who, inspired by the attempts on Pope and President that year, as well as the killing of John Lennon months earlier, said he did it to be famous.

In Australia in 1981 we got to find out who was guilty of the killing of baby Azaria Chamberlain- it was the dingo. Well, that was in February, but after new evidence was presented, this verdict was quashed later in the year and a second inquest begun.

This time, (but watch this space), the  dingo had:

                     Nothing to be guilty of.

THE WEDDING OF THE CENTURY

Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles had known each other for several years, and had been ‘seeing each other’ for about 6 months when the Prince finally popped the question in February 1981. But Di had a holiday planned, so she didn’t give him an answer up front.

The holiday was spent at Bloomfield, the property owned by her mother and stepfather near the NSW town of Yass. When she wasn’t helping rid the property of the noxious weed called the Bathurst burr, she was staying in a beach house near Bateman’s Bay. The Australian air must have gotten to her because on her return she accepted the Prince’s offer, and was soon sporting a £30,000 engagement ring, made of diamonds, sapphire and white gold.

Despite the British feminist magazine, Spare Rib, producing a prophetic badge that bore the words Don’t do it Di!, the royal wedding went ahead in July, attracting a television audience that represented 1/6 of the world’s population. Amazingly, the BBC didn’t charge for coverage, so it was picked up by most Australian channels, except ADS-7 in Adelaide who showed a John Wayne movie, and TVT-6 in Southern Tasmania who showed Last Tango in Paris.

The wedding had a few interesting moments, like Diana calling her beloved Phillip instead of Charles. And there was a change to the traditional vows with the Princess not promising to obey the Prince.

Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser wanted Charles to be the next Governor-General, but, according to a poll, only 28.4% agreed. Overwhelmingly the opinion was that our next representative of the Queen should be, as had been the custom for 50 years now, an Australian.

Later in the year the royal family could relax as it was announced that the Princess was expecting an heir to the throne the following July.

IF YOU LEAVE ME

Not long before I began writing this essay, the great AC/DC musician and songwriter, Malcolm Young, had died. A few days later, a fellow Malcolm (Turnbull that is), in an attempt to break through to a different demographic, was doing an interview on Sydney’s Triple M’s morning show. The hosts asked the then PM what his favourite AC/DC song was. It was obvious he didn’t know any, which is fine, but instead of declaring ignorance, he asked the interviewers to name theirs. ‘Long Way to the Top’ and ‘Highway to Hell’ were mentioned, so he could have named one of those, but no, what does our Malcolm do? He names a song by Mental As Anything- If You Leave me Can I Come Too, a song that happens to come from 1981.

Words were exchanged last night
You could call it a fight
It’s such a shame, I never thought we would
Wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t so good
I’ve had enough of that
With other loves in days gone by
It wasn’t much I know
Mmm just enough, enough to make me cry

If you leave me, can I come too?
We can always stay
But if you leave me, can I come too?
And if you go, can I come too?

The song has one of the great hook lines of all time in my opinion, one of those that makes you think ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ But the credit goes to singer/guitarist of The Mentals, Martin Plaza.

If You Leave Me made it to number 4 in the Australian charts.

Don’t let it happen again
‘Cause that I couldn’t take
Ooh once was quite enough
It’s easy to forgive, harder to forget           

If you leave me, can I come too?
We can always stay
But if you leave me, can I come too?
And if you go, can I come too?

In 1981, another Malcolm (Fraser that is) was PM, and that year his Industrial Relations minister Andrew Peacock resigned, accusing the PM of gross disloyalty. Leadership challenges were in the air, though not acted upon (unsuccessfully) until the next year. Fraser was never a big fan of Peacock and vice versa, so it’s very unlikely that he would have ever said to Andrew:

If you leave me, can I come too?

SMALL SCREEN, BIG SCREEN

It was the 25th anniversary of TV in Australia, and Federal Health Minister, Michael Mackellar, marked the occasion by buying a colour TV set in Hong Kong, but made a false customs declaration when he brought it into Australia. To make matters worse, the Minister for Customs, John Moore, did nothing to make sure that the fine of $184 was paid. Both ministers resigned over the affair. These days they’d be stars of Border Security.

Big TV shows of 1981 were Brideshead Revisited, and a TV adaptation of A Town Like Alice, presenting the Northern Territory to the world.

The TV quote of the year though came from George Negus on 60 Minutes, when he said of Treasurer John Howard:

His manner of speech is as exciting as a Dictaphone on an off day.

Just in case TV wasn’t boring enough, televised parliament was being talked about, and the keenest advocate was none other than Speaker, Billy Snedden.

Meanwhile on the big screen we viewed Australian movies like Gallipoli, Breaker Morant and Puberty Blues. From America there was Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark , The Shining and Superman 2. And from Britain, French Lieutenant’s Woman, Elephant Man, Being There, The Life of Brian, and Chariots of Fire, based on the true story of two athletes, one Christian, one Jew, competing in the 1924 Olympics.

The movie was a blockbuster, winning many awards, as did its soundtrack, written by Evángelos Papathanassíou (known professionally as Vangelis), a Greek composer whose work ranged from ambient music to jazz, to orchestral and electronic music. Choosing a contemporary sound was quite ground-breaking for an historical film which would normally attract a symphonic score reminiscent of the period.

Chariots of Fire was the biggest-selling single of 1981.

WHO CAN IT BE NOW?

Who can it be knocking at my door?
Go away, don’t come ’round here no more
Can’t you see that it’s late at night?
I’m very tired, and I’m not feeling right
All I wish is to be alone
Stay away, don’t you invade my home
Best off if you hang outside
Don’t come in, I’ll only run and hide
Who can it be now?

The music of Who Can It Be Now? was written by Colin Hay in a treehouse in Bermagui on the south coast of NSW. The words came later, when he was living in a flat in Melbourne’s St Kilda, next to drug dealers, and people would often knock on Hay’s door by mistake, to the point where he became paranoid about opening his door.

Who can it be knocking at my door?
Make no sound, tip-toe across the floor
If he hears, he’ll knock all day
I’ll be trapped, and here I’ll have to stay
I’ve done no harm, I keep to myself
There’s nothing wrong with my state of mental health
I like it here with my childhood friend
Here they come, those feelings again!

The song was a hit in Australia for Men At Work, made it on to their album of that year, Business As Usual, and went on to become an international hit.

On each episode of SBS’s RocKwiz, the house band always plays an instrumental version of this Aussie classic as the panel tries to work out who the guests are.

So, Quiz Time:

1. Who can it be now?
   When I was elected French president in 1981, one of the first things I did was to abolish the guillotine.
2. Who can it be now?
   I’m a slick, bright and bouncy, manufactured English vocal group that won Eurovision in 1981 with a particularly annoying song that was only notable because the two boys in the group pulled long skirts off the two girls, revealing mini skirts.
3. Who can it be now?
   I’m an Australian state premier who, after a ‘xxxxxslide’ at the last election, was returned even more handsomely in 1981.
4. Who can it be now?
   I’m a notorious Australian state premier who allowed sand mining on Moreton Island in 1981, the year my wife became a senator.
5. Who can it be now?
   I’m an ex-pat Australian singer-songwriter who managed, in 1981, to get a songwriting credit for co-writing (with Carol Bayer-Sager) one line of Arthur’s Theme.

When you get between the moon and New York City.

The best line in the whole song, in my opinion.

6. And finally, Who can it be now?
   I am an ex-pat Aussie living in the USA, and I sang one of the big hits of 1981. The song was about the physical side of a relationship, but I managed to make it look like it was more about fitness than sex.

And the answers are-
1. Francois Mitterand
2. Buck’s Fizz
3. Neville Wran
4. Joh Bjelke-Petersen
5. Peter Allen
6. Olivia Newton-John, and the song?

PHYSICAL

Let’s get physical, physical
I want to get physical
Let’s get into physical
Let me hear your body talk, your body talk
Let me hear your body talk

I’m saying all the things that I know you’ll like
Making good conversation
I gotta handle you just right
You know what I mean
I took you to an intimate restaurant
Then to a suggestive movie
There’s nothing left to talk about
Unless it’s horizontally.

A backing singer on The Bee Gees’ Spicks and Specks album from 1966 was Steve Kipner, who went on to become half of duo Tin Tin, best known for the 1971 hit Toast and Marmalade For Tea.

In 1981, Kipner, then living in California, had co-written (Let’s Get) Physical, with overt references to horizontal folk dancing. Thinking it would be ideal for a raunchy singer like Rod Stewart, he was surprised when it was taken up by squeaky clean Olivia Newton-John.

The accompanying video gave a boost to the popularity of the fairly new exercise regime that combined music with exercise, aerobics. And Olivia’s gym gear made physical exercise a fashion statement.

It was still too steamy, though, for certain conservative US communities, and was on the banned list on some radio stations, which of course added to its success.

I’ve been patient, I’ve been good
Tried to keep my hands on the table
It’s gettin’ hard this holdin’ back
If you know what I mean
I’m sure you’ll understand my point of view
We know each other mentally
You gotta know that you’re bringin’ out
The animal in me.

Enough of that sex talk, time for a history talk from Dr Jim Stokes.

I want to get cerebral
Let’s get into cerebral
Let me hear your history talk
Let me hear your history talk.

Unfortunately, there was no history talk for 1981 from Dr Stokes with his usual wry look at the Cabinet Records of that year, but you can read about the papers by going to Cabinet documents 1981.

NOTES

Songs, YouTubes, Credits
Bette Davis Eyes written by Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss
Bette Davis Eyes Jackie DeShannon version
Bette Davis Eyes Kim Carnes version
Wired For Sound written by Alan Tarney, B. A. Robertson
Guilty written by Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb
If You Leave Me written by Martin Plaza
Who Can It Be Now? written by Colin Hay
(Let’s Get) Physical written by Steve Kilby and Terry Shaddick.

Book
The Bee Gees by Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook and Môn Hughes.

Show never performed
Essay written Nov 2018.

 

 ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!

All in all it’s just another brick in the wall
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.       

Another Brick in the Wall Part II was the single from Pink Floyd’s blockbuster double album, The Wall. The album was an outlet for bassist Roger Waters’ feelings of alienation after he’d spat on an irritating audience member at the end of a long North American tour two years earlier. The incident made him realise how there was now an enormous barrier between them and their audience.

This theme of alienation became the basis for The Wall. And just to add to the feeling of isolation, they spent a good part of 1979 in studios across the world, recording it. The Wall was the concept album taken to extremes, more like a play, with characters and storyline- very theatrical.

This track from the album, Another Brick in the Wall Part II, was originally 90 seconds long. The record’s producer who saw the song as a potential single, extended it and added a children’s chorus. The head music teacher at Islington Green School provided the kids, who were asked to sing in an edgy almost shouted fashion, and with a cockney accent. Waters loved the result, and the single became an unlikely Christmas number 1 in the UK. (Hardly Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer!)

The album went on to sell 12.5 million copies, which led to some questioning about why the Islington kids were paid only with a free copy each of the album, plus a £1,000 donation to the school.

All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
(If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t get yer pudding )
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall
(You behind the bike sheds, stand still Laddy)

All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

QUICK FACTS

And all this in the UNESCO International Year of the Child.

Care for Kids, it’s important to care for kids
It’s important to be there for kids
It’s important to care for kids.

The Care For Kids jingle, written by Australian composer Peter Best, came to attention via an advertising agency in which broadcaster Philip Adams was involved. The jingle actually made it into the Australian charts getting as high as number 13.

1979 was also the year when an Aussie girl wearing nothing but a bikini made front page news when she kissed Prince Charles on a Perth beach. And a Ukrainian girl wearing nothing but a bikini made front page news when she jumped from a Russian ship and swam her way to defection.

It was a time when we were driving smaller cars, eating less meat and more vegies, drinking more wine and less beer.

Science discovered we should be concerned about the hole in the ozone layer, CO2 in the atmosphere, and the resulting threat to forests and water.

At a time of strikes, inflation and tax increases, the cost of a night at the movies for two was $10, the cost of a double room in a motel for two $22, the cost of a meal at a BYO restaurant for two $24, and the weekly poverty line for two $121.44.

A visit to the dentist went up to $14.20 for a filling, and a standard consultation at the doctor went up to $10.20.

According to the Sun Herald, the prize for best dressed politician went to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the sartorially elegant Mr Andrew Peacock. The prize for the worst dressed politician went to Country Party Leader Doug Anthony, described as:

Dressing like a pig farmer visiting the big city for the first time, with enough room in his ill-fitting suits to carry emergency bags of feed.

VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR

Technology, whilst not at the level of today’s usage, was creeping into our lives. We had pocket calculators, microwave ovens, electronic ticket dispensers, pioneer digital recordings, and according to Aussie/New Zealand group, Mi-Sex…

Com-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu
Computer games.

 Computer Games went to number 1 in Australia in 1979.

I fidget with the digit dots and cry an anxious tear
As the XU-1 connects the spot
But the matrix grid don’t care
Get a message to my mother
What number would she be
There’s a million angry citizens
Looking down their tubes at me

Com-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu,
Computer games
Com-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu
Computer games.

The synthesiser was a key part of the Mi-Sex sound, and it also featured strongly in a British hit song with a machine theme.

I heard you on the wireless back in ‘52
Lying awake intent at tuning in on you
If I was young it didn’t stop you coming through
Oh-a oh, I met your children
Oh-a oh, What did you tell them?

Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star.

Video Killed the Radio Star, recorded by The Buggles, was one of those infectious songs that plays in your head incessantly, what we would now call an ‘earworm’.

In my mind and in my car
We can’t rewind we’ve gone too far
Pictures came and broke your heart
Put the blame on VCR

Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star.

 I WILL SURVIVE

While in the USA there was a ‘death to disco’ movement, here in Sydney alone 100 discos opened in 1979. Mostly these were converted from former restaurants and theatres, and attracted a cover charge of $2.

Roller discos, too, were the latest thing, and colourful Labor politician Al Grassby was invited to the opening of one such venue because apparently Al loved roller skating. St John’s Ambulance was on hand and I’m not sure if that was because of Mr Grassby’s presence, or a regular thing.

One song that was played perpetually in discos at the time began as a B-side, but eventually eclipsed its A-side to become a worldwide hit, coming in at number 3 on the Australian charts.

Go on now go
Walk out the door
Just turn around now
‘Cause you’re not welcome anymore
Weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
Did ya think I’d crumble
Did ya think I’d lay down and die

Oh no not I, I will survive
As long as I know how to love
I know I’ll stay alive
I’ve got all my life to live
I’ve got all my love to give
And I’ll survive
I will survive.

Sung by Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive struck a chord with the gay community, not just as a superb dance track, but as a statement of determination in a world of discrimination and unequal rights.

TV, RADIO, MOVIES AND THEATRE

Malcolm Fraser was right in the middle of his term as Prime Minister in 1979, and was at the ABC in Melbourne, appearing on a show called Talk of the Nation. Countdown was being recorded in the next studio so the producer coerced him into coming onto the set of the influential music program to announce the show.

To help the ABC survive, 1979 was the first year that the ABC was allowed to keep the profits from sales of records, books, concerts and programs instead of it going into general coffers, setting the scene for ABC merchandise and ABC shops.

Meanwhile on commercial TV, two high rating Australian shows had hit songs that went with them.

If I were a minstrel I’d sing you six love songs
To tell the whole world of the love that we share
If I were a merchant I’d bring you six diamonds
With six blood red roses for my love to wear

But I am a simple man, a poor honest farmer
So take my 6 ribbons to tie back your hair.

Against the Wind was a 1978 mini-series produced by Crawford Productions, set in convict Australia. It starred Jon English who, with one time band member Mario Millo, composed and recorded the soundtrack of the series. The album became the best-selling middle-of-the-road album of 1979, and the single, Six Ribbons, the best-selling single by a male artist that year.

Tooralie, tooralie
All I could share
Is only six ribbons
To tie back your hair.

It was the year when the long-running international hit Prisoner was first aired. The story lines were controversial, the lighting dimmer than usual, and it was an instant hit. So too was its theme song, On the Inside.

He used to give me roses
I wish he could again
But that was on the outside
And things were different then

On the inside the sun still shines
And the rain keeps falling down
But sun and rain are prisoners too
When morning comes around.

Prisoner attracted a million viewers a week, but its popularity was not shared by Mr Fred Nile.

This despicable new show emphasizes terror and violence, it has objectionable language, and depicts illicit sex acts. I prefer more wholesome entertainment like The Brady Bunch, the Waltons, and Australians at War.

One of the big international movies of the year upset believers all over the world, and delighted non-believers. It was Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which featured a song, sung by Eric Idle whilst being crucified, just to prove that there is a positive side to crucifixion.

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle
Don’t grumble, give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best.

And always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the light side of life

Life’s a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true
You’ll see it’s all a show
Keep ’em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath
And always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life.

In the world of Australian theatre, David Williamson had been writing successful plays at the rate of one every year or so, and his 1979 offering told the story of an aged couple moving from Melbourne to Queensland. The play contains this line:.

Moya Simpson’s just had another one, and it’s made me clucky

Moya Simpson, please explain.

I can only assume that Mr Williamson visited the Sydney Theatre Company with whom the dance company I worked for shared a space in Alexandria. We all had to sign in at the front of the building, so is that where he pinched my name? I’m still waiting for the royalty cheque.

WORLD NEWS

Good evening here is the world news for 1979.

Iran
The Shah was driven into exile, and Ayatollah Kohmeini victoriously returned from exile to seize power. Later in the year fanatic followers of the Ayatollah stormed the US Embassy in Teheran and took nearly 100 hostages.

Nicaragua
The Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrew the Somoza dictatorship.

Uganda
The Ugandan National Liberation Front deposed Idi Amin.

Ireland
Cousin of the Queen, Lord Mountbatten was killed by an IRA bomb while heading out on a fishing trip.

Afghanistan
A crack Soviet unit took Kabul airport, paving the way for a Soviet invasion, the Kremlin claiming that its forces were:

requested to render urgent political, moral, military, and economic assistance.

Cambodia
After Vietnamese troops occupied the capital, Pnomh Penh, the Red Cross launched an immediate food and medicine operation, in an attempt to save 2 million lives.

Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
The country’s first black Prime Minister, Abel Muzowera, was elected, but with whites still exerting much control. Exiled leaders Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo denounced the election and threatened to overthrow the new regime.

United Kingdom
Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, came into office after a general election, promising an overhaul of the British economic and industrial climate. Thatcher presented herself as a leader of radical change, declaring to Labour voters that they wanted the same things as she did.

Thatcher visited Canberra in 1979, and during her talks with Malcolm Fraser proposed a mediation role for Australia in the Zimbabwe controversy.

MAL AND BOB

Malcolm Fraser, hero of the left in later life, was once not very popular with that faction at all, as illustrated in this song by Eric Bogle.

My friend big Malcolm
Has a jaw like Desperate Dan
A schnozzle like Durante
And the heart of Genghis Khan
He’s got eyes like twin icebergs
And he very rarely smiles
And the general disposition of a rhinoceros with piles
He’s our buddy, he’s our mate
And he is our pal Mal
Ain’t we all so lucky to have Mal.

In 1979, a poll asked the question- who is your preferred Prime Minister?

In third place was Opposition leader Bill Hayden, second was Malcolm Fraser, and in first place was Robert J. Hawke, a man who wasn’t even a political candidate. Although that was soon to change.

I went to school and I got full marks
So I toddled off to Oxford with the ruling class
I wore clean flannels and a lecherous leer
I studied economics and I drank bulk beer
He studied economics and he drank bulk beer
I drank so much I could hardly stand
One day I will be leader of this big, broad land
He drank so much he could hardly stand
One day he will be leader of this big, broad land.

In 1979, Bob Hawke won pre-selection for the safe seat of Wills, not long after Hayden had said there was no way he was stepping aside for Hawke.

And everyone said ‘Poor bugger me
He’ll become the leader of the whole country’
And everyone said ‘Poor bugger me
He’ll become the leader of the whole country.’

CRYING LIKE A REFUGEE

Looking like a choirgirl
Crying like a refugee
Looking like a choirgirl
Crying like a refugee.

Three years earlier a single boat carrying five Vietnamese asylum seekers had arrived at Darwin Harbour without much fanfare, and the five were processed quickly and allowed to stay. From this small beginning the era of the boat people began, and within 18 months there were daily arrivals.

In opposition, Fraser had argued that Australia had a moral obligation to take refugees from Vietnam, so, against strong recommendations to create a ‘reception centre’ or turn back the boats, his government adopted a humanitarian approach. Where possible, Department of Immigration officials were sent to refugee camps to process applicants, but boat arrivals were willingly accepted. In contrast, ALP policy was to provide temporary stay for boat people till arrangements were made to settle them overseas, and to treat asylum seekers as queue jumpers.

By 1979, 29% of our immigrants came from Asia, and most of these as refugees or as part of the family reunion program. Polls showed an increase in support for Australia to take in boat people, though one poll indicated that Coalition and Democrat voters were more accommodating of the policy than ALP voters.

Fraser’s attitude was to not give in to any hardline stance, but to stick to his beliefs and take the electorate with him. In so doing he changed Australia’s ethnic mix forever, and made a massive contribution to multiculturalism.

And she’s crying like a refugee.

The song Choir Girl was a hit for Australian pub rock band Cold Chisel in 1979, making it to number 14 on the charts. It is written from the point of view of a woman facing an abortion, but the reference to this was obscure enough for Catholic stations like 2SM to keep it on their play list.

One nurse to hold her
One nurse to wheel her down
The corridors of healing
And I’ve been trying
But she’s crying like a refugee

Suffer little children
Send that little child to me
All day the doctor
Handles his responsibility
Loves me like a choirgirl
Crying like a refugee.

HATCHES, MATCHES, DESPATCHES 

Born in ’79 were singer Ravi Shankar’s little girl Norah Jones, singer Pink, and all 3 members of silverchair. It marked the beginnings of Men at Work and Australian Crawl.

When it came to marriages, Alana Hamilton, one of the numerous tall leggy blonde models in Rod  Stewart’s life, married Rod that year, obviously answering ‘yes’ to the question posed in the title of his 1979 hit album.

Do ya think I’m sexy?
Do ya like my body?
Come on sugar let me know.

And it was goodbye to punk rocker, Sid Vicious, who died aged 24.

I’ll probably die by the time I reach 25. But I’ll have lived the way I wanted to.

It was farewell also to one of my all-time favourite songwriters, Richard Rodgers, who died aged 77. In writing political satire I often find that I call on Rodgers’ songs to parody, and the more I get into them, the more I respect his writing.

And 1979 was the year that we lost legendary English star of stage and screen, Gracie Fields.

On her funeral day she was many miles away
Drinkin’ doubles at the Rose and Crown
Undertakers had to wait ‘cos she’d quite forgot the date
She’s dead but she won’t lie down.

RAPPER’S DELIGHT

These days the most streamed music genre on the spotify playlist is hip-hop. It has its origins in the early ‘70s, but 1979 is a seminal year in its development because it marks the point where it made the leap from the ghettos of New York to the ears of the wider American community, and from that to become the worldwide phenomenon it is today.

The song that made the difference was Rapper’s Delight by The Sugarhill Gang, the first rap single to make the Top 40 in the USA. 

I said a hip hop,
The hippie to the hippie
The hip hip a hop, and you don’t stop, a rock it
To the bang bang boogie, say up jump the boogie,
To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat.

Hip-hop has deep cultural roots, coming as it does from African-American and Puerto-Rican youth culture in the Bronx. It is a subculture with its own distinctive music, dance, art and jargon. From it, we have vocal rhythmic rhymes and wordplay (rapping or MCing), the manipulation of two turntables to play segments of vinyl records that combine to create a rhythm track (DJing), the use of excerpts from other people’s records (sampling), vocal percussion in which rhythms are created orally (beatbox), and energetic gymnastic street dancing (breakdancing).

Being an authentic voice of disadvantaged neighbourhoods, hip-hop has a political edge to it, expressed not only through its lyrics and music but also through the use of graffiti art.

Hip-hop has always been controversial, its lyrics being seen as promoting misogyny and violence, and its music being guilty of plagiarising already existing records. For instance, Rapper’s Delight included samples of a Blondie song, which led to a copyright dispute which was settled by adding Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards from Blondie to the songwriting credits.

Now hip-hop is a worldwide phenomenon which has gone way beyond its New York neighbourhood roots, and adapted itself to the cultures of other countries. It took another decade or so before Australian hip-hop had its first commercial outing, but the style has since developed its own regional flavour and lyric references.

And as far as the mainstream goes, it all began with Rapper’s Delight in 1979. 

JOH

In 1979, Joh Bjelke-Petersen kept up the standard of outrageous political shenanigans, like launching a vote of no-confidence against the opposition. Guess who won!

It was year in which he authorised the demolition of the 93 year-old Belle Vue Hotel in Brisbane at 1 o’clock in the morning.

It was the year in which there was talk of mining oil on the Great Barrier Reef? But he did have a good explanation.

It’s not all reef, you know, there’s a tremendous lot of water.

And people were still being arrested for demonstrating on the streets of Brisbane.

We don’t want to disrupt the comings and goings and goings and comings of ordinary decent people.

Joh and his Queensland police state provided continual inspiration for great Aussie bands like Skyhooks…

Well I spent too long in the deep south
The land of the big peanuts
It ain’t that good in the police state
They burn down the hippy’s huts
They turn back the clock a decade
They bust you for no reason
The sun shines the whole year round
The shotgun’s still in the season 

I’m goin’ over the border
Over the border
Over the border
Down in NSW.

Joh had this to say about Skyhooks’ song.

A cheap little gimmick aimed at attracting free publicity.

Redgum had released their first album the year before, which featured Letter to BJ.

Hear me Bjelke Petersen
In your leather- padded chair
There’s a tide outside your door
That’s steadily rising
And it’s a simple case of freedom
And a lot of us who care
So if demonstrations aren’t enough
Make sure you’ve said your prayers 

Joh Bjelke Petersen
Joh Bjelke Petersen
He’s the flying peanut
Uncle Joh.

And Joh’s reaction to the songs?

Any song mentioning my name is bound to be a hit.

COOL CHANGE 

And finally, 1979 was a golden year for Australian music. AC/DC and Air Supply had breakthrough albums in the USA and there were more hits for the group that led this wave of international success- The Little River Band.

If there’s one thing in my life that’s missing
It’s the time I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters
There’s lots of those friendly people
Showin’ me ways to go
And I never want to lose their inspiration

Time for a cool change
I know that it’s time for a cool change
Now that my life is so pre-arranged
I know that it’s time for a cool change.

Cool Change hit number 10 in the US, and even though it didn’t make it into the Australian charts at all, it was voted as one of the top 30 songs of all time by the Australasian Performing Rights Association.

I know that it’s time for a cool change
He is the man who’s read every page
So we know that it’s time for a cool, cool change.

A cool change from us to the archival scholar, Dr Jim Stokes. Click here to read a transcript of his 1979 talk.

 Jim Stokes 1979 talk
(Used by permission of National Archives of Australia)

NOTES

Songs, YouTubes, Credits
Another Brick in the Wall Part II written by Roger Waters
Care For Kids written by Peter Best
Computer Games written by Murray Burns and Kevin Stanton
Video Killed the Radio Star written by Geoff Downes, Trevor Horn and Bruce Woolley
I Will Survive written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris
Six Ribbons written by Jon English and Mario Millo
On the Inside written by Allan Caswell
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life written by Eric Idle
Our Pal Mal written by Eric Bogle
The Drover’s Dog written by John Schumann
Choir Girl written by Don Walker
He Is Dead But He Won’t Lie Down written by Michael Carr, William Haines and Jimmy Harper
Rapper’s Delight written by The Sugarhill Gang, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards
Over the Border written by Greg Macainsh
Letter to BJ written by John Schumann
Cool Change written by Glenn Shorrock.

Books
Malcolm Fraser- The Political Memoirs by Malcolm Fraser and Margaret Simons
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton

Show performed 2010
Essay written March 2017

 

BAKER STREET

Windin’ your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day
You’ll drink the night away
And forget about everything

This city desert makes you feel so cold
It’s got so many people but it’s got no soul
And it’s taking you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it had everything

You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you’re tryin’
You’re tryin’ now.

Many people know Baker Street, London as the street where fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes was based. But to Scottish singer/songwriter, Gerry Rafferty, it was the location of a friend’s flat which became a bit of a crash pad while he was sorting out legal issues with his former band Stealers Wheel. He would sit and chat and play guitar through the night, and out of it came this hit song and the album City to City.

Another year and then you’d be happy
Just one more year and then you’d be happy
But you’re cryin’, you’re cryin’ now.

Rafferty came from Paisley in the Scottish Lowlands, (as did one-time Australian Prime Minister, George Reid- there the similarity ends). The musical influences on Gerry were wide, from hearing French composer Ravel at his church, to Elvis and Little Richard on Radio Luxembourg, and Irish rebel songs from his father. He taught himself the banjo, formed a duo with Billy Connolly, then the folk-rock group Stealers Wheel, with whom he had the hit Stuck In the Middle With You.

Baker Street was a gigantic hit and made Rafferty a very rich man. Part of the song’s appeal is the soaring sax solo played by a session musician with the great name of Raphael Ravenscroft. He reckons he created the solo, and Rafferty says he always had it as part of the song but couldn’t make it work on guitar, so decided on sax. Whichever story is true, Ravenscroft was paid £27.

When you wake up it’s a new morning
The sun is shining, it’s a new morning
You’re going, you’re going home.

1978 was the year that Moya migrated to Australia from London, and it was this song that made her feel homesick. It was the year that the $10 departure tax was introduced, so no wonder she never went back home.

QUICK FACTS

In 1978 the population of Australia was 14,192,234. Our average annual income was $6,763.54, and unemployment was at a record post-war high. The cost of a dozen long-neck beers was $7.69, a white sliced loaf of bread 54c, and 86c would buy you a 25-pack of Winfield cigarettes, which were being advertised by Paul Hogan.

The comic strip Garfield, created by American cartoonist Jim Davis, made its debut.

The world’s first baby to be conceived by IVF was born, and artificial insulin was invented.

Hang gliding was growing in popularity.

Corporal punishment was still allowed in schools.

Commercial whaling ended in Australia

After 10 years of construction marred by a fatal industrial accident, Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge finally opened, with 6% of people afraid of being blown off it.

In one newspaper poll, 69% saw public transport as a solution to city transport problems, rather than freeways.

And in another poll, our most popular politician, at 21%, was Nifty Neville Wran, re-elected that year in a Wranslide. Second, at 17%, was Donny Dunstan, in the year he sacked his police commissioner. Coming in at 14% was the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, and right at the bottom on a whopping 0% was the Treasurer, John Howard.

SHORT PEOPLE

John Howard had become Treasurer the year before when Phillip Lynch was forced to stand down. Next to Fraser’s six-foot-four, Howard’s five-foot-nine looked disproportionately diminutive, and he soon earned the nickname Little Johnny. Of course Howard was actually of average height, but that didn’t stop the cartoonists from portraying him as one of the short people.

Short people got no reason
Short people got no reason
Short people got no reason
To live

They got little hands
And little eyes
And they walk around
Tellin’ great big lies
They got little noses
And tiny little teeth
They wear platform shoes
On their nasty little feet

Well, I don’t want no short people
Don’t want no short people
Don’t want no short people
Round here.

 Randy Newman’s satirical song from 1978 was about prejudice, but because he sang it from the point of view of the biased person, it was too ironical for some.

We don’t want no irony around here.

Newman even gave us a clue to the irony in the bridge section of the song, where he sang, deliberately back in the balance of the mix,

Short People are just the same
As you and I
(A fool such as I)
All men are brothers
Until the day they die
(It’s a wonderful world).

Many radio stations refused to play Short People, and of course the publicity generated by the controversy helped to give Newman his first hit record, number 1 in Canada, 2 in the US and 10 in Australia.

WORLD SERIES CRICKET

To show that many things stay the same, the world’s trouble spots in 1978 included Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Burma. There was concern about desalination of the Murray-Darling, a drought was causing food prices to rise, there was debate about where Sydney’s second airport would be, and Australia lost The Ashes.

Test Cricket was now under threat from a new heightened television-friendly star-ridden Packer-driven take on the sport. The ABC had always broadcast Test Cricket since the days when the wireless reigned supreme, but Kerry Packer, looking for ways to boost the ratings of his Channel Nine, eyed these prized TV rights. Years earlier, he had made an outrageous offer to the Australian Cricket Board, but was turned down and the national broadcaster’s contract was renewed.

So Packer secretly signed individual players from around the world, streamlined the game, radically increased the pay packets of the cricketers, and to increase its market reach, commissioned an advertising jingle.

The jingle came from the advertising team that had created such successful campaigns as:..

You oughta be congratulated

and

I feel like a Tooheys or two.

Alan Johnston and Alan Morris, Mojo as they became, made the most of the Aussie accent in their jingles, always sung by Johnston in a gruff voice that encapsulated the stereotypical irreverence of the Australian character.

C’mon Aussie c’mon c’mon
C’mon Aussie c’mon c’mon
C’mon Aussie c’mon c’mon
C’mon Aussie c’mon.

‘Packer’s Circus’, as cricket traditionalists called it, went on to enjoy great success in its second season in the summer of 1978/’79, and C’mon Aussie C’mon developed a life of its own. Mojo lengthened it, released it as a single, which soared to number 1 on the Australian charts.

It’s on again this summer
We’ll take on every comer
The question is who will make the team?
Will the wild and woolly new boys
Beat the test of tried and true boys?
There’s only just eleven vacancies,
Will it be the rocket Rodney Hogg?
Or will our Shirley Thompson get the job?
Sure it wouldn’t be the same
Without them shouting Lillee’s name
And they tell me Lenny Pascoe’s running hot
For openers we’re looking pretty good
With bats like Darling, Hilditch, Laird and Wood
There’s Border, Hookes and others
And the mighty Chappell brothers
I tell you boys this year we’re looking good

C’mon Aussie c’mon c’mon
C’mon Aussie c’mon c’mon
C’mon Aussie c’mon c’mon
C’mon Aussie c’mon. 

World Series Cricket with its night matches, one-day matches, coloured clothing, full-time professional players, marketing, and merchandising has had a major effect on the game.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Meanwhile, another song from England hit Moya’s homesick button.

Out on the wildly, windy moors
We’d roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you. but I loved you, too
Bad dreams in the night
You told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights.

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home
I´m so cold, let me into your door.

Teenager Kate Bush was a self-taught piano player and prolific songwriter whose artistic family encouraged her to record a rough demo of 50 of her songs, and send it around to record companies. There was no response until David Gilmour, guitarist and vocalist of Pink Floyd heard it, and had a producer friend re-record the demo to a more professional level.

Consequently EMI signed her, and in 1978, at the age of 19, she released her first album The Kick Inside. The recording executives wanted her to release a rocky song, but she held firm and insisted it should be the ethereal Wuthering Heights.

Too long I roamed in the night
I’m coming back to his side, to put it right
I’m coming home to Wuthering, Wuthering
Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home
I’m so cold, let me in your window.

 In Bush’s own words:

When I first read Wuthering Heights I thought the story was so strong- this young girl in an era when the female role was so inferior and she was coming out with this passionate, heavy stuff. Great subject matter for a song.

Many a British high school student was grateful for Bush’s song helping them to get interested in the novel, as it was on the reading list in 1978. Kate said:

One thing that really pleases me is the amount of positive feedback I’ve had from the song, though I’ve heard that the Bronte Society think it’s a disgrace.

No matter what, Wuthering Heights was a major hit, making it to the top of the charts in Britain, Europe and Australia, thanks also to a video clip featuring dance moves that were as wild and moody as the moors.

In the UK she gave the male-dominated music industry a kick in the pants when she became the first British woman to reach number one in the UK charts with a self-penned song.

On a radio interview she was once asked what preparation a soprano like her does to hit low notes. Her highly technical reply was:

I eat a great big block of chocolate.

DYLAN, COSTELLO AND MEAT LOAF

Bob Dylan surprises everyone when it comes to his live performances. His guises, his reworking of songs, his line-ups of musicians, the standard of his performances, are all variable. But I’ve always been a big fan, so when he toured Australia in 1978, as part of a world tour, I decided to go and see him at the Sydney Showground. I hadn’t booked a ticket so when the big day arrived, April Fools’ Day it was, I just turned up and came across a woman who was selling tickets that she couldn’t use. I paid the actual ticket price of $12.50, and was ushered to a seat in a reserved section relatively close to the stage.

It was a week after Easter and Sydney had had a very wet holiday season, but the sky cleared as the pre-concert music started with a string quartet playing classical music. Then out came Dylan looking nothing like the folk-club troubadour that had once been his image, but clad in a white suit complete with band, brass section, and female backing group. It was so slick that the tour had been dubbed The Vegas Tour.

I loved it. It was like a greatest hits show, with Dylan re-inventing many of the songs, the arrangements were tight, his singing self-assured and at one point with a hand-held microphone, no guitar. After 2½ hours, 30 songs including two encores, I drove home, high on a great experience.

When I heard reports of the concert the next day it was like I was hearing about something I hadn’t been at. From my position in the front stalls I hadn’t noticed the mayhem behind me, as the crowd of 30,000 waded through mud and animal manure. The Royal Easter Show had been held in exactly the same spot just days before and it had rained during the whole Easter period, so the ground was saturated. Plastic sheeting and wooden planks were insufficient to offset the quagmire.

Since the early ‘70s, in the wake of Woodstock and the advent of bigger PA systems, big outdoor concerts had become the venues for the big international acts. But after this Dylan concert, Consumer Affairs was swamped with so many calls from angry fans, that the NSW government vowed to construct a large indoor venue, marking the beginning of the era of large soulless Entertainment Centres.

In another controversy, Elvis Costello had seat covers and cans thrown at him at Sydney’s Regent Theatre after he left the stage having played for less than an hour and without an encore.

But, causing a sensation and pleasing the crowds at an indoor venue at the Showground, the Horden Pavilion, was the discovery of the year, the singing equivalent of Ringside Wrestling, Meat Loaf.

It was a hot summer night and the beach was burning
There was fog crawling over the sand
When I listen to your heart I hear the whole world turning
I see the shooting stars
Falling through your trembling hands
You were licking your lips and your lipstick shining
I was dying just to ask for a taste
We were lying together in a silver lining
By the light of the moon
You know there’s not another moment
Not another moment
Not another moment to waste

And then you took the words right out of my mouth
Oh — it must have been while you were kissing me
You took the words right out of my mouth
And I swear it’s true
I was just about to say I love you.

Meat Loaf was a Texan songwriter and actor whose real name was Marvin Aday. He’d come to the stage via high school musicals, moved to LA and was cast in Hair. This led to a list of appearances in other musicals, during which time he met and performed with New York Songwriter, Jim Steinman.

Steinman had written a musical based loosely on Peter Pan and thought that some of the songs could be the basis of an album featuring Meat Loaf. With that in mind, he kept writing until they had enough tracks recorded to peddle to record companies. For over two years they were knocked back until being taken up by a lesser known company. It paid off because the album, Bat Out of Hell, has sold well over 40 million copies. The best-selling single off the album was You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth, number 5 in Australia in 1978.

 CHISEL, WHITEHOUSE AND ABBOTT

As far as Oz music goes, the hardest rocking venues were the pubs, a scene that spawned a host of very tight and highly original bands. But record companies were reluctant to attempt to catch the raw excitement of these live acts on vinyl.

One such band had come out of Adelaide where it attracted large crowds at their regular haunt, the historical Largs Pier Hotel in Port Adelaide. The band was Cold Chisel.

Needing to spread their wings the band moved to Melbourne, then Sydney, where they finally released an album and a single, Khe Sanh.

Now the last plane out of Sydney’s almost gone
Only seven flying hours
And I’ll be landing in Hong Kong
There ain’t nothing like the kisses from a jaded Chinese princess
Gonna hit some Hong Kong mattress all night long.

Khe Sanh was written by the band’s keyboard player Don Walker, on a scrap of paper in Sweethearts Café, Kings Cross. Even though the Battle of Khe Sanh involved mostly US Marines, with a small Australian presence, the song is an Aussie classic, strongly identified with our Vietnam vets. First released in 1978, it was considered to be too racy, was banned from radio, and even Molly Meldrum asked them to change the words when they went on Countdown. They refused.

The last plane out of Sydney’s almost gone.

At a time of outrage over Cold Chisel’s reference to prostitution, Australia was graced by a visit from famous British morals crusader, Mary Whitehouse, President of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association and the Clean Up TV Campaign…

The organisation I hold most responsible for the state of our country today is the BBC, the platform for anyone who is prepared to say anything morally subversive.

Mary Whitehouse, due to talk at a rally in Sydney, was advised by police to give it a miss, as hundreds of protesters, armed with rotten tomatoes and eggs, were waiting to meet her. So instead their decomposing vegies were hurled at the young organiser of the rally, a certain Mr Tony Abbott.

Can’t help himself
Bad Abbott
Was running wild
Lost control
Now it’s a case
Of egg on face
For young Crusader
Bad Abbott.

 LOVE IN THE AIR AND THE OILS

In 1978 it was predicted that 50% of cars would be electric by the year 2000, that Andrew Peacock would be Prime Minister in 2 years, that Australia would soon become a republic, that Prince Charles would marry Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg, and that the next Pope would be Italian.

At least that last one came true because in 1978 the head of the Catholic Church was Italy’s own Albino Luciani, better known as Pope John Paul I. After 33 days though he was dead (controversially to some), and in his place was the first Polish pope, Pope John Paul II.

Here in Australia we led the world because we had our very own John Paul who preceded them both. Ours was John Paul Young, nicknamed ‘Squeak’ by PR guru Patti Mostyn, because he spoke in a high-pitched voice. In 1978, after a string of pop hits, he recorded a new track that bore the influence of the disco beat.

Love is in the air
Everywhere I look around
Love is in the air
Every sight and every sound
And I don’t know if I’m being foolish
Don’t know if I’m being wise
But it’s something that I must believe in
And it’s there when I look in your eyes

Love is in the air
Love is in the air.

Love Is In the Air was written by one-time Easybeats’ musicians and songwriters, Harry Vanda and George Young, who by now were the brains behind the hit machine that was Alberts, home to pub rock acts like AC/DC, The Angels and Rose Tattoo.

Midnight Oil happened to be recording their debut album at one of Alberts’ studios at the time.

I’m on the whiskey flying, and I’ll run by night
I’m on the phone to summer, so I’ll see you on the flight
My friends are at a party, playing games with the light
I hate to say I’m wrong
I just know I’m right
We all run by night.

Every time the Oils had a break they could hear the relentless disco beat and that landmark ascending crescendo in the next studio

Love is in the air
Love is in the air.

Midnight Oil’s song went to number 100 on the charts, the song next door made it to the top, not just in Australia, but around the world.

Many years later after The Oils were a success story, they performed at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, and on the bill was John Paul Young singing:

Love is in the air
Love is in the air.

GLAD TO BE GAY

One wintry night in 1978, 500 members of Sydney’s gay community gathered for a parade calling for an end to discrimination and the repeal of all anti-homosexual laws. As the revellers moved down Oxford Street and the numbers swelled to 2000, this British gay anthem by the Tom Robinson Band was broadcast through a small PA on the back of a truck.

The British Police are the best in the world
I don’t believe one of these stories I’ve heard
‘Bout them raiding our pubs for no reason at all
Lining the customers up by the wall
Picking out people and knocking them down
Resisting arrest as they’re kicked on the ground
Searching their houses and calling them queer
I don’t believe that sort of thing happens here

Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way.

The NSW police weren’t impressed with the fact that the song had made it to number 18 on the UK charts, and as the crowd reached Hyde Park they confiscated the truck and sound system, then blocked the parade once it got to Kings Cross. Over 50 were arrested, some seriously beaten, and despite most of the charges being dropped, the good old Sydney Morning Herald published the names of those arrested.

This simply had the effect of galvanising the gay community into further protests and a regular parade each year. By 1981 it was shifted to the warmer month of February and called the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, now a major part of Sydney’s calendar of events.

Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way
Sing if you’re glad to be gay
Sing if you’re happy that way.

Interestingly, I can find no reference to this song on the Australian charts, although a follow-up song by the Tom Robinson Band called 2, 4, 6, 8 Motorway did get to number 11 that year. It’s not clear whether it was banned, or simply not released here.

MENZIES

Revered by some, despised by others, Sir Robert Menzies has the honour of having more songs sung about him than any other Prime Minister. This one is sung to the tune of The Bells of St Mary’s.

The balls of Bob Menzies are wrinkled and crinkled
Curvaceous and spacious as the dome of St Paul’s
The crowds they all muster to gaze at that cluster
They stand and stare at that wond’rous pair of Bob Menzies’
Balls, balls, balls, balls
Balls, balls, balls, balls,
Bob Menzies’ balls.

During his two times in office, the man who inspired these immortal words appealed successfully to the middle class (the forgotten people), took Australia into three wars (World War II, Korea, Vietnam), took a very anti-Communist tack through many years of the Cold War, formed the Liberal Party, and saw off three opposition leaders (Chifley, Evatt and Calwell).

But for Pig Iron Bob, it was the end of the road in 1978, when he died of a heart attack in his Malvern home, while reading a book.

Menzies was given a state funeral, one of the largest Australia had known, attended by Prince Charles, former British Prime Ministers Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson, as well as former Australian Prime Ministers Gorton, McMahon, McEwen, and of course the then PM, Malcolm Fraser. A 19-gun salute was fired at the end of the ceremony, and as the funeral procession made its was way to the Crematorium, over 100,000 people lined the streets of Melbourne.

If we should lose our Menzies
Wherever should we be
If Menzies means as much to you
As Menzies means to me.

THE WILD ONE

Just five months after Menzies went to that great Parliament-in-the-sky, Australia lost another national icon, Johnny O’Keefe.

There are two Australian acts that I regret never experiencing live- one is Midnight Oil, the other is J O’K. A pioneer of Australian rock ‘n’ roll, a flag-waver for the local entertainment industry, he certainly lived up to his moniker of The Wild One, with a life of car accidents, ever-changing fortunes, drug and alcohol dependency, and living and performing on overdrive. What he lacked in technical vocal skill he made up for in spades with raw excitement and energy. I think his live rendition of Shout at Sydney Stadium is one of the gems of rock ‘n’ roll, in terms of capturing a moment, up there with The Beatles doing Twist and Shout. (They’re both Isley Brothers’ songs. Is that a coincidence?)

When Elvis died in August 1977, aged 42, O’Keefe was shocked, and told a friend ‘I’ll be next.’ His prediction wasn’t far off the mark because just 14 months later, aged 43, he was dead after a massive heart attack induced by barbiturate poisoning.

Johnny O’Keefe, Rocker, as his listing in the phone book read, was gone. The country was stunned and shocked at the news, his funeral was enormous, and thousands of mourners lined the streets.

Gonna break loose
Gonna keep a-movin’ wild
Gonna keep a-shakin’ baby
I’m a real wild child.

 STIGWOOD

In 1978 Australian rock music was making its mark overseas, with the two best-selling albums of the year in the US having strong Australian connections. The link between the two was Australian-born impresario Robert Stigwood.

At the age of 20, Stigwood migrated to Britain where he went on to have much success in the music industry. By the early ‘70s his fortunes had declined greatly so he turned to producing music films like the screen adaptations of Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy. On the lookout for new projects he came across a magazine article about a group of Italian teenagers in Brooklyn who spent their time dancing at discos. He bought the rights and the article eventually became Saturday Night Fever.

When it came to music he turned to the group he had long represented, The Bee Gees, who came up with four songs that fitted the movie like a glove- Night Fever, More Than a Woman, How Deep Is Your Love, and this masterpiece that reeks of the energy of New York.

Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk
I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk
Music loud and women warm, I’ve been kicked around
Since I was born
And now it’s all right, it’s okay
And you may look the other way
We can try to understand
The New York Times’ effect on man 

Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’
And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive.

Beginning as a few lines scrawled on the back of a plane ticket, Stayin’ Alive, an affirmation of survival on the streets of New York, was the perfect song to be played as the Travolta character walks those very streets in the film’s opening scene.

Saturday Night Fever, the movie, was made for $3.5 million, and has made its money back eighty times over. Now Stigwood and The Bee Gees were certainly…

Ah ah ah ah stayin’ alive.

Stigwood’s next film was a screen adaptation of the musical Grease, first produced in 1971 as a gritty stage show that told the story of working class youth in the ’50s, with a score that evoked the music of the time.

John Travolta was cast as well as Olivia Newton-John, and when it was felt that the film needed some extra songs, Stigwood called up Barry Gibb to ask for a song called Grease. Gibb was stuck. 

Do you write about combing your hair? Do you write about Brylcreem or what? How can you make that romantic?

He solved the dilemma by writing about the word ‘grease’.

Grease is the word,

It’s got a groove, it’s got a meaning
Grease is the time, is the place, is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling.

Stigwood also called on expatriate Aussie songwriter, John Farrar, who came up with Hopelessly Devoted To You and this one.

I got chills
They’re multiplyin’
And I’m losin’ control
‘Cause the power
You’re supplyin’
It’s electrifyin’

You better shape up
’cause I need a man
And my heart is set on you
You better shape up
You better understand
To my heart I must be true
Nothin’ left for me to do.

Whenever the musical Grease is staged live it includes the songs that were added into the film.

You’re the one that I want
You are the one that, ooh ooh ooh
The one that I want
You are the one that, ooh ooh ooh
The one that I want
You are the one that, ooh ooh ooh
The one I need
Oh, yes indeed.

Now we’d like to hand you over to the National Archives historian who will give you his take on the Cabinet Records of 1978, making sure that our history is:

Ah ah ah ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.

Yes, Jim Stokes,

You’re the one that we want.

To read the transcript of Jim Stokes’ summary of the cabinet records of 1978, click on this link.

CABINET 1978 SHORT ESSAY

NOTES

Songs, YouTubes, Credits
Baker Street written by Gerry Rafferty
Short People written by Randy Newman
C’mon Aussie C’mon, Meadow Lea ad and Feel Like a Toohey’s written by Allan Johnston and Alan Morris
Wuthering Heights written by Kate Bush
You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth written by Jim Steinman
Khe Sanh written by Don Walker
Bad Habits written by Billy Field and Tom Price. Parody by John Shortis
Love Is In the Air written by Harry Vanda and George Young
Run By Night written by Peter Garrett, Rob Hirst, Andrew James, Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey
Glad To Be Gay written by Tom Robinson
The Balls of Bob Menzies, lyrics anonymous, sung to tune of The Bells of St Mary’s, printed in the book of that name by Warren Fahey
There’ll Always Be a Menzies, lyrics anonymous, sung to tune of There’ll Always Be an England, printed in The Balls of Bob Menzies by Warren Fahey
The Wild One written by Johnny O’Keefe, Johnny Greenan and Dave Owens
Stayin’ Alive written by Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb
Grease written by Barry Gibb
You’re the One That I Want written by John Farrar.

Books
Songwriters Speak by Debbie Kruger
The House of Hits by Jane Albert
Big Blue Sky by Peter Garrett
The Balls of Bob Menzies by Warren Fahey
The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely by Mungo MacCallum
Johnny O’Keefe by Jeff Apter
The Bee Gees by Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook and Môn Hughes.

Online
Little Johnny and the Fat Man by Mungo MacCallum (from The Best Australian Essays 1999, edited by Peter Craven)
Nothing But the Truth, published in Sydney Morning Herald, July 30 2011 (in which Tim Freedman interviews Randy Newman)
Kate Bush Encyclopaedia website
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras website.

Show performed 2009
Essay written Feb 2018

QUICK FACTS

Up till this time Australia had a dollar note, a brown piece of paper with Aboriginal motifs of kangaroos and boomerangs on it. Then, in came the dollar coin, with which you could purchase a twin pack of Sorbent toilet paper, but not quite a bottle of Fountain Tomato Sauce ($1.06), or a 100g block of Cadbury’s chocolate ($1.34).

In the same year, the hundred dollar note was in circulation for the first time, and it could buy you 5 Compact Discs, much the same cost as today. CDs were then a brand new technology, and had only been adopted by 3% of consumers.

Australia’s population at the time was 15.5 million, and the car loved by most of those was the Ford Falcon GL, yours for just $12,200.

All this at a time when a typist’s salary was $13,785, Prime Minister Hawke was paid $124,219 a year, the Queen 7 million, and a musician $5,000.

In the world of technology, it was the era of the first dot-com domain name, the first Apple Macintosh, and Microsoft’s very first Windows, version 1.

CYNDI

In 1979, a relatively unknown singer/songwriter called Robert Hazard recorded Girls Just Want To Have Fun, a song he’d written very much from a male perspective.

The phone rings in the middle of the night
My father says, “My boy, what do you want with your life?”
Father dear, you are the fortunate one
Girls just want to have fun

Come home with the morning light
My mother says, “My boy, you’ve got to start living right”
Don’t worry, mother dear, you’re still number one
Girls just want to have fun
These girls just want to have fun.

Cynthia Lauper was a New York girl with a big voice, who had been singing and writing songs since she was 12. By the age of 17 she’d changed her name to Cyndi, and was in a band called Blue Angel, making an album, and getting support gigs to acts like Hall and Oates. After a dispute with a manager, the band broke up and Cyndi, depressed and bankrupt, was unhappy with her first record label.

They wanted to put cement go-go boots on me so I couldn’t do anything on stage.

By 1983, she had changed labels and her debut solo album, appropriately called She’s So Unusual, went platinum many times over. A mixture of covers and originals, it included her reworking of Hazard’s song. In Cyndi’s words:

The first time I heard it, I understood how I could sing from my point of view and make it a call to solidarity for women. I really wanted every woman to hear that song and think about their power.

Helped along by her outrageous multi-coloured hair, a stand-out video clip, and an idiosyncratic vocal sound, the once masculine song became not only one of the biggest international hits of 1984, but also a classic feminist anthem.

I come home in the morning light
My mother says- when you gonna live your life right?
Oh Mommy dear, we’re not the fortunate ones
And girls, they wanna have fun
Woah girls, just wanna have fun
That’s all they really want
Fun fun
Yes they wanna have fun, fun

Some boys take a beautiful girl
And hide her away from the rest of the world
I wanna be the one to walk in the sun
Oh girls they wanna have fun
Oh girls just wanna have
That’s all they really want
Fun fun,
Yes they wanna have fun, fun.

Rolling Stone magazine described her as:

Rock’s answer to Betty Boop. One of the most vividly compelling female talents to emerge in the eighties.

When Lauper was asked her age, her reply was:

I’m not a car. It doesn’t matter.

What mattered was that her career was well and truly launched. Her follow-up single was Time after Time, a song she wrote after she noticed a TV guide listing for a sci-fi film with that name.

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick
And think of you
Caught up in circles
Confusion is nothing new
Flashback warm nights
Almost left behind
Suitcases of memories
Time after time

If you’re lost you can look and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you I’ll be waiting
Time after time.

VIRGINS AND SURGEONS

One singular sensation
Every little step she takes
One thrilling combination
Every move that she makes
One smile and suddenly nobody else will do
You know you’ll never be lonely with you-know-who.

One, from the musical A Chorus Line, filmed in 1984 by Richard Attenborough.

In February that year he was in New York auditioning for dancers and in walked an unknown 25 year-old hopeful by the name of Madonna Louise Ciccone. He turned her down.

Unlike Cyndi, Madonna wasn’t a New Yorker through and through but had moved there while still in her teens to follow a career in dance, performing with celebrated contemporary choreographers like Alvin Ailey.

After a brief stint working in a musical in Paris, she started playing drums and singing in New York rock bands, developing a style that definitely had dance at its heart.

Then from her second album in ’84 came this song.

I made it through the wilderness
Somehow I made it through
Didn’t know how lost I was
Until I found you

I was beat, incomplete
I’d been had, I was sad and blue
But you made me feel
Yeah, you made me feel
Shiny and new

Like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
When your heart beats
Next to mine.

Helped along, no doubt, by moral rights campaigners who saw the song and its accompanying video as undermining family values, Like a Virgin was a number 1 hit around the world. Madonna was now the rage among young women who longed to adopt her look of lace tops, rosary beads, crucifixes, bleached hair and bustiers. These female disciples became known as Madonna wannabes, because their catch-cry was:

We wannabe like Madonna.

Whereas Cyndi Lauper’s feminism was worn on her sleeve, Madonna’s influence was the subject of much debate among feminist elders.

Like a Virgin was written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, the writers of True Colours for Cyndi Lauper, Eternal Flame for the Bangles, and co-writers of I Touch Myself for the Divinyls.

Weird Al Jancovic released a parody of the song that gave it a completely new meaning.

Finally made it through med school
Somehow I made it through
I’m just an intern
I still make a mistake or two

I was last in my class
Barely passed at the institute
Now I’m trying to avoid, yeah I’m trying to avoid
A malpractice suit

Like a surgeon, hey
Cuttin’ for the very first time
Like a surgeon
Here’s a waiver for you to sign

Ooh baby, yeah I can hear your heart beating
For the very last time.

NUCLEAR

Back in 1984, Australian surgeons were not happy. Nor were many who worked in the local health industry. It was the year the newly re-elected NSW government, led by Nifty Neville Wran, cut hospital budgets, and the Hawke government introduced Medicare, the combination of which led to a bitter drawn out series of resignations and strikes within the medical profession.

But Hawkie felt secure enough to call an early election, which he won, but with a reduced majority. One of his first tasks was to deal with the failing ANZUS Treaty, and he rang up newly elected David Lange to beg him to change his policy of no nuclear warships in New Zealand.

Around the same time, Stevie Wonder released a song that marked a change from technological experimentation to a simpler approach where the melody, lyrics and vocal delivery said it all.

No New Year’s Day to celebrate
No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away
No first of spring
No song to sing
In fact here’s just another ordinary day

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Bob Hawke could have sung it to Lange with these words:

No nuclear ships
Down Auckland way
No joy for Reagan and his USA
For saving face
To save the day
David, there’s one thing I have to say

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Bob had a bit of a problem with the left faction of his party who convinced him to renege on the Fraser government’s decision to allow the US to trial its MX missiles in the oceans south of Tasmania. He had to face newly re-elected US President Reagan and give him the bad news.

In the words of Aussie band, Redgum, from their 1985 hit, The Drover’s Dog,

I flew around the world to improve my stature
I met Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher
The Pentagon rang so I sank in the boot
‘Cause they don’t need ANZUS or kiwi fruit
(No they don’t need ANZUS or kiwi fruit)
I serve as Reagan’s deputy
That’s why I am governing the whole country
(He serves as Reagan’s deputy
That’s why he is governing the whole country).

Who could forget the famous parody of the Gone With the Wind movie poster! Maggie Thatcher is in the arms of Ronald Reagan, and the caption reads:

She promised to follow him to the end of the earth. He promised to organise it. Now showing worldwide!

Around the same time, Greenpeace had been protesting at Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific, the site of France’s nuclear tests. The environmental organisation was about to take a flotilla to the danger area for a Bastille day protest, when two explosions ripped through the Rainbow Warrior, a converted trawler that was to lead the flotilla. One crew member was killed.

And 1984 was the year that the British government confirmed that British nuclear testing had occurred almost 30 years earlier at Maralinga, South Australia, home to the Pitjantjara and Yankunytjatjara people.

Paul Kelly’s response was this song, Maralinga.

This is a rainy land
First we heard two big bangs
We thought it was the great snake digging hole
Then we saw the big cloud
Then the big black mist began to roll
This is a rainy land

A strangeness on our skin
A soreness in our eyes like weeping fire
A pox upon our skin
A boulder on our backs all our lives

This is a rainy land
This is a rainy land
No thunder in our sky
No trees stretching high
But this is a rainy land.

In 1985, a Royal Commission, led by Jim McLelland, recommended a major clean-up of the land and compensation for the traditional owners.

THEATRE AND MUSICALS

The nuclear issue was a key one back then, the subject of many songs, films and stage shows. One of these was The Boiling Frog, the last play presented by Nimrod at their Surry Hills venue (now the Belvoir Street Theatre). I know all about it because I wrote the music, and as I was going through the Heralds of ’84 I came across the press coverage of the show.

The Nimrod’s publicity machine described it as:

A brave and jolly band of people who live, love, work, sing and dance- all happy characters with a cheering message.

But it’s not how the reviewers saw it.

An evening of unrelieved tedium, a dismal evening.

Meanwhile in London, the blockbuster musical, Les Miserables, which had originally been produced in Paris back in 1980, had its first English language production in 1984.

I had a dream my life would be
So different from the hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

In New York, Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George premiered on Broadway, and here in Australia, Cats began its long run. On opening night at the Theatre Royal, in the presence of Sydney’s glitterati and PM Bob Hawke, the big intro began for the hit song, and just as Debbie Byrne was about to give her golden tonsils an outing, there was a bomb scare. The audience was evacuated and by the time the all-clear was given and the audience was herded back in, it was almost

Midnight.

Because Andrew Lloyd-Webber had not needed a lyricist for Cats, thanks to T.S. Eliot, Tim Rice had to find new composers for his idea to create a musical about the Cold War. He heard that the Abba boys were looking for a project and, when the band broke up, they jumped at the chance. They even recycled the chorus of an obscure ABBA song.

I am an A
I’m a B
He is OK
So is she
Singing together in harmony.

The musical became Chess, released as a concept album in 1984, and the song became:

Wasn’t it good?
Wasn’t he fine?
Isn’t it madness
He can’t be mine?
Oh so good
Oh so fine
He can’t be mine?

But in the end he needs
A little bit more than me
More security
He needs his fantasy
And freedom
I know him so well.

MOVIES AND MUSIC

In 1984 the movie of George Orwell’s book 1984 was showing at the cinema. Other films of ‘84/’85 included Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Big Chill, Amadeus, Out of Africa, A Passage To India, This Is Spinal Tap and Cocoon. Politics came to the fore in The Colour Purple, The Killing Fields, Silkwood and Gorky Park.

In Australia a young Sydney actor called Nicole Kidman made her movie debut in BMX Bandits, several local films were based on books (Annie’s Coming Out, Careful He Might Hear You and Bliss), and we produced the most expensive Australian film to date, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, featuring Tina Turner singing this song.

Out of the ruins
Out from the wreckage
Can’t make the same mistake this time
We are the children
The last generation
We are the ones they left behind

We don’t need another hero
We don’t need to know the way home
All we want is life beyond
Thunderdome.

In music news, Michael Jackson, who had been advised by Paul McCartney to get into music publishing, bought the rights to nearly every Beatles’ song, much to McCartney’s dismay. It was also the year when his hair set alight in a Pepsi commercial.

And in surprise news, Elton John got married, while on tour in Sydney, on Valentine’s Day 1984, to Renate Blauel, his German recording engineer.

I wanna kiss the bride yeah
I wanna kiss the bride yeah
Long before she met him she was mine, mine, mine
Don’t say I do
Say bye bye bye
And let me kiss the bride yeah.

The wedding was held at St Mark’s, Darlinghurst. For obvious reasons, the marriage didn’t last for too long.

Advance Australia Fair was officially our anthem, just in time for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Luckily Australia did badly at the Games, only winning 5 gold medals, so we didn’t have to put up with too many embarrassed athletes singing, with mouths open narrowly

Australian sons let us rejoice.

But, we can be thankful that a committee of Canberra’s best changed that line to:

Australians all let us rejoice.

JOH, MAGGIE AND STING

There weren’t many years in which there wasn’t a story about Joh Bjelke- Petersen, and these two years were no different.

A mate of his who ran the Queensland TAB, was accused of betting irregularities to the tune of $700,000. When it was suggested to Joh that he should get rid of him, Joh refused and said:

It’s not like in NSW where politicians and influential people get up to all sorts of illegal mischief all the time.

Then, in 1985, Joh excelled himself when he quickly brought in tough anti-union legislation to control the Queensland power workers.

His inspiration was Maggie Thatcher. She was in the midst of a year long dispute with the Yorkshire coal miners who went on strike after severe pit closures. In response, Sting wrote this song which appeared on his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, in 1985.

We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together

This place has changed for good
Your economic theory said it would
It’s hard for us to understand
We can’t give up our jobs the way we should
Our blood has stained the coal
We tunnelled deep inside the nation’s soul
We matter more than pounds and pence
Your economic theory makes no sense

We work the black seam together
We work the black seam together.

Maggie won of course, significantly weakening the British trade union movement. 

AN ELECTION AND A NEW SOAPIE

In December 1984, Australia had a premature election, eighteen months early. Labor lost seats, for which Hawkie blamed the introduction of above-the-line voting in the Senate.

During the ten-week, Opposition leader Andrew Peacock challenged Hawke to a US-style pre-election television debate, which he reluctantly agreed to, and thus began the tradition that we now know and love. There was no worm back then, just phone calls.

Mike Carlton wrote that viewers had a choice between:

A sun-tanned silvery PM in a sombre navy suit and oh so discreet maroon tie or a sun-tanned silvery Opposition Leader in a sombre navy suit and oh so discreet maroon tie.

The winner was deemed to be the latter, but his popularity in the debate wasn’t enough to stop John Howard from taking over as Opposition Leader in 1985. Howard from Sydney, Peacock from Melbourne, neither of them ever had to bother about being:

Neighbours
Everybody needs good neighbours
With a little understanding
You can find the perfect blend.

Neighbours, the international television phenomenon, was first aired in 1985, on Channel 7. It didn’t get good ratings in Sydney, so the goings on in Ramsay Street were taken off the air, before Kylie and Jason even had a chance to appear. But the song did. Written by Jackie Trent and Tony Hatch, it has become the best known TV theme song in the world.

Neighbours should be there for one another
That’s when good neighbours become good friends.

FAMINE RELIEF

In those politically correct times, the Inner London Education Authority banned Peter Rabbit because he was too upper class, Tom Sawyer and Robinson Crusoe because they were racist, and Oliver Twist because it was anti-Semitic. But Christmas was still allowed, which is just as well for the inventors of Trivial Pursuit, because Christmas that year saw 200,000 Trivial Pursuit games being given as presents.

And what Christmas song of 1984 became the biggest selling single in UK Singles Chart history, selling a million copies in the first week alone, stayed at Number 1 for five weeks, and was also number 1 in Australia?

And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time
The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life.
Where nothing ever grows
No rain or rivers flow
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?

Bob Geldof had seen a BBC TV report that year which highlighted the famine that had hit the people of Ethiopia, and wanted to raise money to help that cause. So he co-wrote Do They Know It’s Christmas? with his mate Midge Ure, and gathered a group of British artists to record it. Among them were Boy George, Sting, Phil Collins, members of U2, Spandau Ballet, Bananarama, Status Quo, Duran Duran, and the Boomtown Rats.

To maximise its income for the cause, Geldof worked tirelessly to talk record executives and manufacturers to donate time and services and to eliminate percentages. He talked around retailers, the Musicians’ Union, the BBC, and the media. It worked and the single raised £8 million, despite the British government refusing to remove the VAT on sales.

The next year Harry Belafonte instigated an American response, with another money-raising anthem, We Are the World, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, and recorded by a who’s-who of superstars like Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, , Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and  Ray Charles. It became the fastest-selling single in the world, raising $63 million.

We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So lets start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
Its true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me.

This song led to the Live Aid concerts, shown in 155 countries to an audience of 2 billion. Australia nearly missed out on the telecast when Channel Nine questioned the wisdom of giving up a day to an unknown demographic. Molly Meldrum convinced the ABC to broadcast an Australian version, Oz For Africa. Live Aid raised an additional $50 million for famine relief and earned Bob Geldof his sainthood.

MISCELLANEOUS SONGS

By co-writing a song that contributed to such a good cause, Lionel Richie perhaps redeemed himself somewhat after giving us a video clip a year earlier, in which he follows a blind student into a craft room. As the student moulds a head that looks just like Lionel’s, he looks at her longingly while singing:

Hello!
Is it me you’re looking for?
I can see it in your eyes
I can see it in your smile
You’re all I’ve ever wanted
And my arms are open wide
‘Cause you know just what to say
And you know just what to do
And I want to tell you so much
I love you.

On the good side, there was a very strong Leonard Cohen album called Various Positions, which contained two Cohen classics.

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love.

And a song that went pretty well unnoticed till it was picked up by Jeff Buckley many years later.

I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah.

This is one of the few songs I know that gives you the chords, albeit indirectly- Leonard does it in the key of C, the fourth of which is F, the fifth is G. then it’s to A minor for the minor fall, and to F major for the major lift. Thanks Leonard.

As far as Australian music goes, Ross Wilson’s Mondo Rock, a band that had been turning out great original music since 1976, made it to number 2 in the charts in ’84 with a song that had the honour of being banned by Sydney’s Catholic radio station 2SM.

The band split in 1980 and was launched with a new line-up that included guitarist/songwriter Eric McCusker, the writer of this coming-of-age gem, Come Said the Boy.

It was a party night, it was the end of school
He’s head was feelin’ light, the first time
She seemed much older then, she had turned seventeen
And she knew some older men, the first time

Come said the boy, let’s go down to the sand
Let’s do what we wanna do, let me be a man for you.

McCusker says of the song:

When you write a song you can write what you like, and perhaps Come Said The Boy was me writing how I would have liked to have lost my virginity. Perhaps the fact that it didn’t happen that way explains the strong under-current of yearning in the song.

Interestingly for me, McCusker lists one of his inspirations for the song as French composer, Erik Satie. I say interestingly because I cite Satie as one of my major musical influences.

I’d listened to a lot of Erik Satie and I think there is a simple atmospheric surrealism in my song that might trace from there.

A bit of trivia- the keyboard and guitar player for Mondo Rock was James Black, who for many years featured in the band on SBS’s RocKwiz.

More trivia- 1985 was the year that TV network changed its name from 0-28 to SBS (Special Broadcasting Service).

WHAM! AND JIM STOKES

And finally, 1984 was the year when Wham!, two English boys, hit the number 1 spot on the Australian charts for the first time. The song’s title, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, came from a sign that was hanging on a bedroom door. Wham! were the first Western pop group to perform in China, and after their historic 10-day visit, left a Chinese public slightly bemused with lyrics like these.

You put the boom-boom into my heart
You send my soul sky high when your lovin’ starts
Jitterbug into my brain
Goes a bang-bang-bang ’til my feet do the same
But something’s bugging you
Something ain’t right
My best friend told me what you did last night
Left me sleepin’ in my bed
I was dreaming, but I should have been with you instead.

And what better way to introduce Dr Jim Stokes with his wry look at the Cabinet Records. Back then we always did 4 shows and got to hear Jim Stokes’ talks over and over, so by the fourth time we had to ask him that when he’d finished to

Wake us up before you go-go
Don’t leave us hanging on like a yo-yo
Wake us up before you go-go
We don’t want to miss it when you hit that high
Wake us up before you go-go
‘Cause we’re not plannin’ on going solo
Wake us up before you go-go
Take us dancing tonight
We wanna hit that high (yeah, yeah)
Whim Bim, thank you Jim.

To read Dr Jim Stokes’ take on the Cabinet Records of 1984 and 1985, click on here.

Jim Stokes 1984-85 Cabinet Records

(Used by permission of National Archives of Australia)

NOTES

Songs, YouTubes, Credits
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Cyndi Lauper written by Robert Hazard
Find the original version by Robert Hazard at Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Robert Hazard
Time After Time written by Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman
Like a Virgin written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg
Like a Surgeon parody written by “Weird” Al Jankovic
I Just Called To Say I Love You written by Stevie Wonder. Parody by John Shortis
The Drover’s Dog written by John Schumann and Michael Atkinson, with a little help from Gilbert and Sullivan
Maralinga written by Paul Kelly
One written by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban
I Dreamed a Dream written by Michael Schȫnberg, Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel, Herbert Ketzmer
I Am an A written by Benny Anderson and Bjȫrn Ulvaeus
I Know Him So Well written by Benny Anderson, Bjȫrn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice
We Don’t Need Another Hero written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle
Kiss the Bride written by Elton John
We Work the Black Seam written by Sting
Neighbours written by Jackie Trent and Tony Hatch
Do They Know It’s Christmas? written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure
We Are the World written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie
Hello written by Lionel Richie
Dance Me written by Leonard Cohen
Hallelujah written by Leonard Cohen
Come Said the Boy written by Eric McCusker
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go written by George Michael.

Books and magazines
Is That It? by Bob Geldof
Rolling Stone Magazine, Nov 24 1983

Performed in February 2015
Essay written in September 2016

I’M GONNA BE (500 MILES)

The Proclaimers are a musical duo consisting of identical bespectacled Scottish twins, Charlie and Craig Reid. ‘Swotty geeks and speccy eight eyes’ according to the British press. ‘Pub singers who write about lassies and drinking’ by their own account.

On their debut album, the boys accompanied themselves with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a tambourine. That album produced a hit song, Letter From America, but the song that really took off for them was I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles), from their second album Sunshine on Leith. This time they had a band, which included two veterans of the British folk-rock act Fairport Convention, with Jerry Donahue on lead and Dave Mattacks on drums.

Released in Britain in 1988, I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) quickly became one of those songs that was loved as much as it was loathed, with no middle ground. It only made it to eleventh spot on the charts over there, but here in Australia we loved it, taking it to number 1 for 5 weeks in 1989.  Since then it’s been reinvented so many times that it’s like it never went away.

The first big boost was in 1993, when the song was used in the opening of the offbeat romantic comedy film, Benny and Joon, starring Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson. The five-year-old song was suddenly a huge hit in the USA.

In 2007 it was re-recorded as a comedy single with Peter Kay and Matt Lucas, and went straight to number 1 in the UK. Then in 2014, the film Sunshine on Leith, made up of many Proclaimers’ songs, meant it was popular all over again.

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) has been used in the Alvin and the Chipmunks video game, as a farewell to David Tennant in Doctor Who, at Scottish football matches, and in countless TV shows, ads and movies. And The Proclaimers are still performing, were at Glastonbury in 2015, and have a new album.

They have long been staunch supporters of Scottish independence, and at the 2014 referendum, supported the cause with their name, their music, and their money.

And it all began with a catchy 3-chord wonder back in 1988/’89.

QUICK FACTS

Commercial computers had been used in Australia for 30 years, and there was still a shop called Typewriter World, but in ‘88/’89 the technology that we now know and love started to really flourish.

There was an explosion in the use of mobile phones, which were beginning to rear their ugly brick-sized heads in restaurants, cinemas, bus queues and the like. The cheapest was $2,796, the dearest $5,537, or you could rent one for $25 a day. You could get yourself an Apple CD rom drive for $2,500, or a new Apple scanner for $3,495.

The first well-known computer virus, the 1988 internet worm, was unleashed, the first of 24 GPS satellites were placed into orbit, the first officially sanctioned online commercial e-mail provider debuted, and the first text message was sent.

It was a time when Australia was honoured to be the country with the highest number of McDonald’s restaurants per capita in the world, but if you preferred to eat at home, a Sunbeam Frypan would set you back $59.95, an electric carving knife $19.95, and a microwave at Harvey Norman Discounts, $399.

At a time when casks were 2/3 of the wine market, $6.99 was all you needed for a cask of Lindeman’s Riesling. If you weren’t up to the sophistication of a cardboard drink, you could try cans of Tooheys Draught for $18.49 a slab.

It cost $100 to clothe a kid for school, the average electricity bill for a 4 person family was $110 a quarter, the median house price in Sydney was $134,000, petrol was 42c a litre, and for $18,990, you could be the proud owner of a Holden Commodore Executive.

FAST CAR

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Any place is better
Starting from zero, got nothing to lose
Maybe we’ll make something
Me myself I got nothing to prove.

And speaking of desirable cars, 1988 was the year when we first heard Boston singer-songwriter, Tracy Chapman. Brought up in a working class district in Cleveland, Ohio, she wrote and sang songs that focused on social issues such as the dehumanising effects of inner city life, racism and domestic violence.

It was her song Fast Car that shot her to international stardom, but it may not have happened if it weren’t for Nelson Mandela and Stevie Wonder.

Mandela, still imprisoned, turned 70 that year and major events were held worldwide to mark the occasion, as well as raise money and awareness for the Anti-Apartheid movement. At London’s Wembley Stadium, a star-studded event featured acts like Harry Belafonte, The Bee Gees, Dire Straits, the Eurythmics, Sting and Stevie Wonder. But Stevie’s computer played up, rendering him unable to perform, so Tracy Chapman was given his spot.

Armed with her acoustic guitar she gave a heart-rending rendition of Fast Car, letting the intensity and purity of her voice and the depth of her lyrics speak for themselves.

Her musical tale of a hard-done-by life became the surprise hit of the show. Being in a concert that was broadcast to 67 countries and watched worldwide by 600 million people meant that Fast Car and Ms Chapman would be ignored no more.

That concert was just one small part of world opinion and sanctions that were isolating South Africa, and the following year’s election in that country was the last to be held under Apartheid.

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so you can fly away?
You gotta make a decision,
Leave tonight or live and die this way.

DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY

Here’s a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don’t worry be happy
In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
Don’t worry be happy.

With a title taken from a famous quotation by Indian spiritual master Meher Baba, Bobby McFerrin’s song Don’t Worry Be Happy was the first a cappella recording to ever top the charts.

George Bush Senior ran for president in 1988 with these slogans- ‘A Kinder, Gentler Nation’, and ‘Read My Lips, No New Taxes.’

McFerrin’s song was adopted by the Bush camp as a campaign song. This is my version of what Bush could have used.

Here’s a song I never wrote
But I might use it to get your vote,
Don’t worry, be happy.

But he used it as it was.

The poor old Republicans! They want popular songs for their campaigns, but the writers of these songs are invariably on the left, and Bobby McFerrin was no exception. This is my version of what Bobby might have been thinking.

This song don’t go in your campaign,
Remove it, wash it down the drain,
And hurry, be snappy.

The song was removed, but its absence didn’t stop George becoming President. And like all good politicians, he took the kinder, gentler nation to war with Iraq, and while Americans watched his lips, he raised taxes. The song, though, won Best Song of the Year at the Grammies.

Don’t worry, be happy.

CELEBRATION OF A NATION

Meanwhile, here in Australia, 1988 marked the 200th anniversary of European settlement. Indigenous activists called it the Year of Mourning, but to governments and advertisers it was the Bicentenary, a celebration of the nation. It even had its own song, sung by Rick Price and Margaret Urlich, whose American accents helped to illustrate how proudly Australian we were when it came to promoting this seminal year in our history.

Have you noticed something happening
Something going on round here
Have you noticed there’s a feeling
Of something in the air
It’s a feeling that keeps growing
From the outback to the sea
All those years of sweat and tears
It’s our Bicentenary.

MOJO advertising agency, incredibly successful at selling cricket and margarine, got the job of capturing the spirit of our nation in the TV ad. Akubra hats, Aussie flags and a truckload of celebrities were sent out to Uluru to wave and clap their hands in sync with the slick recording. Have a look at it on YouTube, and see how many people in it aren’t white, young and active.

Celebration of a nation
Give us a hand
Celebration of a nation
Let’s make it grand,
Let’s make it great in ‘88
Come on, give us a hand.

Australia Day was marked by a massive event on Sydney Harbour with tall ships, fireworks, and Charles and Diana. It was seen across the world and led to an increase in visa applications to come to Australia. But it was a divided celebration of a nation, with more than 40,000 indigenous and non-indigenous people marching through the streets of Sydney in protest.

All this at a time when 99 deaths of Aboriginal people in custody were being investigated by a Royal Commission. Singer songwriter Paul Kelly offered up an alternative take on events, in his song Bicentennial.

A ship is sailing into harbour
A party’s waiting on the shore
And they’re running up the flag now
And they want us all to cheer

Charlie’s head nearly reaches the ceiling
But his feet don’t touch the floor
From a prison issue blanket his body’s swinging
He won’t dance any more

Take me away from your dance floor
Leave me out of your parade
I have not the heart for dancing
For dancing on his grave.

THE OUTBACK CHILDREN’S SPECTACULAR

In 1985, I was asked by a colleague who was working at the NSW Bicentennial office to come up with a proposal for a community event. It seemed that most of the planned events were centered around Sydney Harbour so I suggested a project in which I’d create a show with primary students in outback NSW. The concept passed the audition and for a year between October 1987 and October 1988, I lived in Dubbo, driving to 50 schools between there and Broken Hill, the artistic director of what became The Outback Children’s Spectacular.

I began by collecting stories from the kids, which became the basis for songwriting workshops in all the schools. The tunes and the lyrics were theirs, I just facilitated and guided them. A team of arts workers, one of whom was my partner Moya Simpson, then turned the songs into drama and puppetry, circus and dance. The end result was a massive show on a football field in Dubbo with a cast of the 3000 children who wrote it.

The show told of life in the outback through the eyes of its children – stories of isolation, School of the Air, wildlife, technology, lead poisoning, the landscape, motor bikes and so on.

Throughout that year I worked with many Aboriginal communities and saw first-hand the reactions to the Bicentenary. Wilcannia decided not to participate, which I understood but it rocked me a bit. I would like to have had a face-to-face meeting to make sure they knew what they were saying ‘no’ to, but the principal at the school wouldn’t let me. He said they were opposed to the Bicentenary, not to me.

In Brewarrina where there had been riots at the time of a death-in-custody court case, response was pretty positive. The kids there told me of the Weir, a place in the Darling River where they could catch crabs and fish easily, ride and slide across, and swim under the rapid flow of water. I went to see them for myself and was surprised at how simple and effective the traps were.

This some of the song they wrote:

All the fish swimming in the water
Down at the Weir
All around the rocks
All the pelicans, flying in the sky
Up above the weir, diving in the stream.

We know why
They put the rocks there
Long time ago
It’s because there were no shops there
Long time ago.

In towns like Bourke and Weilmoringle I heard of the Min Min Light, a mysterious presence seen many times on the surrounding plains. ‘The closer you get to it, the further it goes away’, they told me.

The Min Min light’s over there
It’s getting close to the car, close to the car
The head-light’s blown in the dark, dark night
I wish we were on the tar

The Min Min light’s on the plain
Everybody’s petrified, we’re all petrified
The closer you get, the farther it goes
I wish we were safe inside

The Min Min light, the Min Min light
Shines mysterious in the night.

At the other end of the scale, some of the parents at one of the small schools I visited, wanted to know what I was going to do to keep their kids safe from the Aboriginal riots that were going to happen in Dubbo. ‘They’ve got guns, you know, we saw it on the tele.’

I succeeded in placating them and after nearly two years of preparation, Dubbo filled with visiting children. A specially commissioned train brought in the kids from Bourke, Brewarrina, Cobar, Nyngan, and towns in between. As the train came in, the theme song the kids wrote played on the station loudspeakers.

The Outback Children’s Spectacular
We don’t mind if you bring Dracula
To the Outback Children’s Spectacular
We don’t mind if you’re a big galah
All around the outback
All around the outback.

The very the first day we assembled the full cast at Apex Oval, I noticed the White Cliff kids walking gingerly on the verdant acres of lawn, so unlike the moonscape they lived on back home.

The day of the final dress rehearsal was a scorcher and had to be cancelled, a nerve-wracking decision, but it was the only thing to do.

On the night it rained as the politicians spoke pre-show, and stopped as soon as the show began. There were 25,000 in the audience. I sat with the sound engineer, with a feeling of anti-climax when it actually happened. ABC TV’s Countrywide had followed me around a bit during the process, and were there on the night. When I saw the footage of me being interviewed afterwards, all I could see was me looking like a stunned mullet.

The Outback Children’s Spectacular was televised throughout regional NSW, and we still get emails from 40 year olds who remember it very fondly.

It was an extraordinary highlight of my creative life, and an experience I’m sure will never be forgotten by those who participated.

THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS

Australian films of ’88 and ’89 included Young Einstein, Cane Toads, Evil Angels, Sweetie, Dead Calm, and Crocodile Dundee 2, which was widely panned. One American reviewer called it Crocodile Donedough.

International blockbusters included A Fish Called Wanda, Good Morning Vietnam, Rain Man, Roger Rabbit, Dead Poets Society, Ghostbusters, Batman, and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, which Fred Nile never viewed, but referred to as ‘a Satan production from the studios of hell.’

Cher had a career boost with the film Moonstruck, as did Bette Midler with the tearjerker chick-flick, Beaches, complete with theme song which has gone on to become a huge hit at weddings and funerals.

Did you ever know that you’re my hero?
And everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle
‘Cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Speaking of wings, the nation’s 1640 domestic pilots resigned en masse in 1989, in a dispute over a new salary package. The Prime Minister Bob Hawke stepped in, backed the airlines, and took on the Australian Federation of Air Pilots. Pilots were recruited from overseas to take their jobs, an unusual step for a PM who was once head of the ACTU.

Unions like you should be illegal
I’ll take the wind beneath your wings.

But this wasn’t the end of Hawke’s troubles. It was well known that his Treasurer, Paul Keating, had his eye on the top job, and although Bob had ordained him as his successor, by 1988 he was changing his tune, and was even talking up Kim Beazley as the one to fill his shoes. Hawke saw Keating as too abrasive, unpopular, with an undertaker image. The polls indicated that Hawke was the popular one and Keating was seen as one dimensional.

Like all leadership issues, all seemed well. ‘My friend and colleague will remain PM as long as he chooses,’ said Keating.

Then, just after the ’88 budget was brought down, Hawke said publicly that he considered his Treasurer to be good at his job, but not indispensable. Keating’s response was ‘I tell you right now, mate, I’m not going to be someone else you can walk over. When I decide to come at you, mate, I’ll take your head right off.’

This led to a succession agreement at Kirribilli House known as The Kirribilli Agreement, at which, in the presence of two witnesses, the PM agreed that he would hand his job to the Treasurer after the next election. Keating was champing at the bit.

It’s been pretty cold here in your shadow
To never have sunlight on my face
I was content to let you shine, that’s my way
I always walked a step behind
But did you ever know I rate you zero?
You’re everything I don’t want to be
Don’t try and replace me with Kim Beazley
I will break wind beneath your wings. ….Scumbag!

TIANANMEN SQUARE

Bob Hawke got a bit sentimental in April 1988, when he farewelled the old Parliament House and moved in to the new one.

And he cried on national TV when he admitted that he had been unfaithful to Hazel.

Then in 1989 he cried again, along with many of us, this time in response to the horrific events in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, at the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

In May that year Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping were shaking hands in an historic meeting at Beijing’s austere Great Hall of the People. Just a few hundred metres away, hundreds of thousands of students and supporters were amassing in Tiananmen Square, in an impassioned call for democracy following the death of Hu Yaobang, a former Communist Party leader who had pushed for a more transparent China.

The protest grew and grew with up to a million taking to the streets. Talks between the students and the government were held, and failed. After six weeks, martial law was declared. Then in early June, the People’s Liberation Army moved in, firing indiscriminately on the protesters, followed by tanks that flattened everything in their path.

Tiananmen, Tiananmen
Let the gunfire cease
Tiananmen, Tiananmen
The Gate of Heavenly Peace.

China’s emerging pro-democracy movement was crushed. An official death toll has never been released, but is estimated to be well over 1,000, and could be as many as 2,600.

WIND OF CHANGE

In stark contrast, the European call for democracy was a different thing all together.

When Mikhail Gorbachev had become General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, he was aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo, and the first leader to have been born after the Revolution. A year after he took the position it was clear that he was bringing in generational change as he launched glasnost, perestroika, demokratizatsiya (openness, restructuring, and democratisation).

In 1988 his Christmas present to the world was a dramatic speech at the United Nations in which he announced troop cuts of 500,000 within the next two years. At the same time, there was a growing movement for self-determination in Soviet states across Europe.

As an indication that things were changing, The Scorpions, a rock band from West Germany, was allowed to play in Russia, and invited back for the Moscow Music Peace Festival in August 1989. The band was so moved by the atmosphere of goodwill at that event that they returned to Germany and wrote this song.

The world is closing in
And did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers
The future’s in the air
You can feel it everywhere
It’s blowing with the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change.

The most striking symbol of Cold War division was the 45 kilometre-long Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 to stop the exodus of East Germans. In November 1989 the checkpoints opened, and the streets were filled with dancing, car horns, and champagne sprays. Thousands clambered over the wall, breaking bits off as they did. Wind of Change became the unofficial anthem of German Reunification.

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change.

POOR WEE BILLY McMAHON

Among those who died in ‘88/’89 were Aboriginal land rights pioneer Vincent Lingiari, writers Raymond Carver, Daphne du Maurier and Samuel Beckett, artists Lloyd Rees and Salvador Dali, songwriter Irving Berlin, singer/ song-writer Roy Orbison, actors John Mellion and Laurence Olivier, comedians Lucille Ball and Graham Chapman.

Politicians who died that year included F D Roosevelt and the ex-Prime Minister who is better known for his wife’s dress than he is for his policies, Sir William McMahon.

Bill made no impact at all
Till Sonia he took to a ball
When they walked in, Nixon choked on his rum
When they saw Sonia’s dress all the guests were struck dumb
‘Cos her dress had two side-splits right up to her bum
Poor wee Billy McMahon.

Poor wee Billy McMahon
He’s mutton dressed up as lamb
He tries to be ‘with it’ and dresses real moddy
But with his big lugs and his skinny wee body
He looks like a cross between Big Ears and Noddy
Poor wee Billy McMahon
Poor wee Billy McMahon.

THE BIGGEST TOWN COUNCIL

Come and sit, sit here before me
And I will tell you a tale
Of so many years rocky and stormy
Of a fight so that right would prevail
A tale of a town where the winter is cold
And summer’s unbearably hot
Of a town called Canberra that wanted no government
But still, a government it got.

Despite Canberrans voting against self-government 11 years earlier, the ACT had its first election in May 1989, an election that was notable for having a ballot paper almost one-metre wide. It listed 117 candidates for 22 political parties with names like the Sun-Ripened Warm Tomato Party, the Surprise Party, and the Party! Party! Party! Party.

It took almost two months after Election Day to determine the results of the election, and four people won seats on platforms of abolishing self-government. Not surprisingly, the result was a hung parliament.

The spectrum, the whole of the palette
From blue Liberal to sun-ripened red
Lined up on a metre-wide ballot
“It won’t work,” the populace said.
The no self-government and Party Party Party
Party danced ’til voting was done
Then, once in, as we all do, they dropped all their platforms
To suck up to those who had won
 
Forming the biggest town council, the tiniest parliament
Roadworks and drainage without the allure
As caring as fed’ral, efficient as local
Enduring and bound to endure
 
Here in the biggest town council, the tiniest parliament
Budget the size of an Anglican school
As caring as fed’ral, efficient as local
Big fish in a very small pool.

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

Just to show that nothing changes, in 1989 Andrew Peacock staged a party room coup in which he deposed Howard as leader, Prime Minister Hawke gave Prince Phillip a Companion in the Military Division of the Order of Australia without a flicker of reaction, and the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption began in Queensland.

As far as corruption inquiries went though, entrepreneurs in Queensland took exploitation to a new level when they launched a line of Fitzgerald Inquiry merchandise. There were stickers and badges, earrings, T-shirts, a vice tour of dens of iniquity in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, and Corruption – the board game: ‘Collect bribes, misappropriate public funds, use the police for political purposes, and commit perjury’, boasted the publicity material.

Joh Bjelke-Petersen appeared before the inquiry in December 1988, and when asked:

What do you understand by the ‘the separation of powers?

And his answer?

Well you tell me. And I’ll tell you whether you’re right or not. Don’t you know?

After 32 years of National Party rule, Labor’s Wayne Goss was elected as Premier. Joh was gone, but not forgotten.

Don’t you worry ‘bout that.

HOME AND AWAY, KYLIE AND JASON

The powers-that-be at Channel Seven had let go of the very popular Neighbours some years earlier, and were keen to atone for their sins with a show with tougher storylines. The show was Home and Away, launched in January 1988 with its own theme song, written by New Zealand-born composer Mike Perjanik.

Hold me in your arms
Don’t let me go I want to stay forever
With you each day
Home and Away

Meanwhile, Neighbours was still a raging success on Ten, and Jason and Kylie were still as popular as ever, winning the Silver and Gold Logies respectively.

Kylie was now a singing star, with her second single number one in the UK and Australia.

I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky.
I should be so lucky in love.

Although they sound like a firm of solicitors, Stock, Aitken and Waterman (SAW) was the song writing and production team behind The Singing Budgie’s success. SAW was a hit factory extraordinaire, and when it produced her first album simply entitled Kylie, it sold over two million copies. Their re-recorded version of Locomotion made it to top 10 in the USA, and Kylie left Neighbours behind her to follow her new musical career, which is still going strong.

IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME

Another big female act of this time was the all-girl band The Bangles, who tasted success in 1988 with a song inspired by the eternal flame at Elvis’ Graceland home.

Close your eyes, give me your hand, darlin’
Do you feel my heart beating?
Do you understand?
Do you feel the same?
Am I only dreaming
Is this burning an eternal flame?

It is said that the lead singer, Susannah Hoffs, recorded that song in the nude, but when Cher appeared on an aircraft carrier in the video clip of her latest hit song Turn Back Time, she wasn’t nude. But she did wear a body suit that left nothing to the imagination.

If I could turn back time
If I could find a way
I’d take back those words that hurt you
And you’d stay
If I could reach the stars
I’d give them all to you
Then you’d love me, love me
Like you used to do.

This year we shared the National Archives stage for the first time with Dr Nicholas Brown from the ANU history department, who filled everyone in on the politics of 1988 and 1989 as it appears in the Cabinet papers. If anyone can turn back time, he can.

He’s gonna turn back time
Here at the NAA
He’ll go back to what Hawkie blurted
In his day
Now he has read the files
He’ll spill the beans to you
Hear the secrets, secrets
Have a peekaboo
He’s gonna turn back time.

NOTES

Songs, YouTubes, Credits
All parodies written by John Shortis
I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) written by Charlie and Craig Reid
Fast Car written by Tracy Chapman
Don’t Worry Be Happy written by Bobbie McFerrin
Celebration of the Nation, music by Les Gock, lyrics by Fran Allen and Tim Phillp
Bicentennial written by Paul Kelly
We Know Why, Min Min Light, and The Outback Children’s Spectacular were written by John Shortis and children in NSW primary schools
The Wind Beneath My Wings written by Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar
Gate of Heavenly Peace written by John Shortis
Wind of Change written by Klaus Meine
Poor Wee Billy McMahon written by Eric Bogle
The Biggest Town Council written by Peter J Casey
Home and Away written by Mike Perjanik
I Should Be So Lucky written by Stock, Aitken and Waterman
Eternal Flame written by Susanna Hoffs, Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg
If I Could Turn Back Time written by Diane Warren

Books and newspapers
The Berlin Wall Story by Hans-Hermann Hertle
Keating, the Inside Story by John Edwards
The Guardian

 

I wish to advise that, thanks to two politicians, this essay does contain language that some may find offensive.

QUICK FACTS

Welcome to the years of 1986 and 1987, a time when Aussie cars first ran on unleaded petrol, and that petrol cost around 51.9 cents a litre. Back then, a 4 litre cask of Lindemans Claret would set you back $5.49, a schooner of beer $1.70. $13,995 would get you a Ford Falcon, $599 a Video Cassette Recorder, and $79,950 a nice little bungalow in the Canberra suburb of Duffy.

These years ushered in a new social group, the DINKS (Double Income, No Kids), but if you did have kids, you’re most likely to have named them Sarah or James.

In fashion, boys were sporting acid-wash jeans, mullets and rats’ tails. For girls, the ubiquitous scrunchie appeared in hair for the first time, and it was the era of leggings, denim jackets, and parachute pants. The really groovy ones, though, teamed flowing Laura Ashley dresses with Doc Martins.

It was a time when Australia became the fastest growing market for fax machines, the first computer virus appeared, and Email was merely a brand of fridge.

In Sydney, a monorail was proposed, a Very Fast Train was being considered, and our second airport, we were told, would be at Badgery’s Creek.

Halley’s Comet appeared in our skies, the Grim Reaper ads appeared on our tellies, and the mobile phone first hit our shores. Known as The Brick, you could pick one up for a mere $4,500.

YOU’RE THE VOICE

In the mid eighties, Johnny Farnham’s golden days of number-one hits like Sadie (The Cleaning Lady) and Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head were far behind him. The career of the five-time King of Pop was going down the gurgler.

He’d had a spell as lead singer of the fading Little River Band, and had dropped the ‘Johnny’ to become a more sophisticated ‘John’,

But he was broke and dispirited, forced to do the club circuit, to sell his properties and move his family into a rented house on a four-lane highway in the north-western Melbourne suburb of Bulleen.

It was in the garage of that faded brick veneer bungalow that a chapter of Australian music history was written. Manager Glenn Wheatley mortgaged his house to raise the $150,000 needed to make a comeback album, and put Farnham, and sound engineer Ross Fraser on a retainer, giving them the time to chain smoke their way through box after box of cassette demos that had been sent to them.

Word got out amongst music publishers that Farnham was on a song search, but they didn’t want to send their best songs to a washed up nightclub singer. So the task was laborious as not all the songs were gems. Still they listened to each tape right through, looking for tougher lyrics than on previous Farnham records.

Talented keyboardist and arranger, David Hirschfelder, who’d worked with Farnham in LRB, was called in, and they started tinkering with drum machines and synths, working up demos for the songs on a 4-track TEAC recorder.

The codename for the album was Whispering Jack, a nickname that Farnham had developed after he was introduced by mistake one night in the USA as Jack Phantom. Inspired by Whispering Ted Lowe, commentator in the TV billiards show Pot Black, Jack Phantom morphed into Whispering Jack Phantom. The theory was that if a redhead could be called Bluey, then a singer with a powerhouse voice like Farnham’s could be called Whispering Jack.

They thought the final song selection had been made when they came across a tape that they’d missed. The song on that tape pricked their interest enough to see if its publishers had any other songs. They did. When Farnham heard You’re the Voice he was blown away, thought it sounded like it was written for him. He recorded it, complete with bagpipe solo (Farnham’s idea), and now Whispering Jack was ready for the world.

Farnham delivered the final tape to Wheatley with a heartfelt message written on it ‘This is the best I can do, boss.’ But Farnham’s lack of confidence meant he wasn’t eating or sleeping, and he would often be found curled up in the foetal position on his suburban couch, convinced that the venture would fail.

Aware that Farnham was considered passé by the radio stations, Wheatley cleverly sent the single out in a plain white cover, with no credits. Triple M in Sydney twigged immediately and sent Wheatley a note to say that they weren’t fooled, and that they didn’t play John Farnham records on their very cool FM station.

Rival station, 2DAYFM, gave the record a spin and the switchboard lit up. Wheatley’s Porsche was equipped with a car phone, the latest technology of the era, so from his luxury car, he rang the depressed singer to tell him the song was number 1.

You’re the Voice went straight to the top spot on the singles charts to become the biggest Australian hit of 1986, sold over a million copies in Europe, and went to number 6 in the UK. Whispering Jack was the first local album to sell over 1 million copies in Australia alone, and broke all sales records for an Australian album worldwide.In 1987 he won the ARIA award for best male artist, went on a successful tour.

Farnham was back in the world. His renting days were over, and he could afford to hire Sadie the cleaning lady again.

PEACOCK, KENNETT and HOWARD

Playing around with a UHF radio scanner they’d just bought at Dick Smith for $299, some members of an activist group for the disabled, unexpectedly eavesdropped upon a car phone conversation that would soon become national headlines, and embarrass three prominent politicians.

It was March 1987, John Howard was Opposition leader, and a bitter rivalry between him and he-who-would-be-Opposition-leader, Andrew Peacock, was burbling away. A Victorian state by-election had just been held, and Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett rang Peacock to complain about Howard. This is just a bit of what the disability activists heard:

He got on the phone and said are you happy with the result, and I said ‘No I’m not’, and he said, ‘Why?’ And I said ‘Without your front pages and total disunity I’d have had ten percent swing. I would have got myself another four and you’ve fucked it up for me’, and he went off his brain.

He said to me, ‘I didn’t like the way you kept me out of the campaign’. I said, ‘Wouldn’t have you in it, and I didn’t have any federal people in it’.

He said, ‘I know where your sympathies lie’, and I said, ‘I couldn’t give a fuck. I have no sympathies any more. You’re all a pack of shits and tomorrow I’m going berserk’. Well he went off his brain and in the end I said to him, I said, ‘Howard. You’re a cunt. You haven’t got my support, you never will have and I’m not going to rubbish you or the party tomorrow but I feel a lot better having told you you’re a cunt’.

To which Andrew Peacock replied:

Be humble, mate.

And Peacock was humbled when Howard sacked him from the shadow ministry.

CROCODILE DUNDEE, HAWKE and KEATING

One of our most successful TV comics, Paul Hogan, had seen an interview on Michael Parkinson’s show with a Northern Territory man who’d been savaged by a crocodile. The interview inspired him to create a character and a movie, Crocodile Dundee, released in 1986.

Made on a budget of less than $9 million, it was a smash hit world-wide, and Hogan was invited to co-host the next Academy Awards. In true Hoges style, he took the piss. Here’s a tiny excerpt.

G’day. the atmosphere here is pure electricity. But as a television show it does tend to go slightly off the boil, especially as it drifts into the third and fourth hour. So, winners, when you make your speech, it’s a good tip to remember the three Gs- be gracious, be grateful, get off.

Bob Hawke was our Prime Minister at the time, and was having bit of a problem with his Treasurer, Paul Keating. Amid bad trade figures, a plunging dollar and high interest rates, Hawke had just returned from a trip to Beijing to find that, while he was away, Keating had made an appearance on The John Laws Show, dropping the famous line:

Australia is in danger of becoming a banana republic.

Hawke decided to do a pre-recorded television address to the nation to let everyone know who was in charge. He hired Peter Faiman, the producer of Crocodile Dundee, to direct his TV appearance, but nothing could alter the fact that this was the beginning of the end of the once strong Hawke/Keating relationship.

Hawke wanted to be positive, give the gloom and doom about the economy a good spin. Keating on the other hand wanted to tell it like it was and prepare Australians for a drop in the standard of living. The gulf between them was widening.

CROWDED HOUSE and JOH

There’s a battle ahead
Many battles are lost

So begins Don’t Dream It’s Over, the first hit for Crowded House in 1986, not written about the Hawke/Keating drift apart, but surprisingly relevant.

After Split Enz had split, Neil Finn and drummer Paul Hester decided to form a new band, The Mullanes. They’d secured a recording contract with Capitol Records, and moved to LA to record their debut album. The band lived together in a crowded apartment in West Hollywood, and soon the band and the album would go by the name of Crowded House.

This song became a massive hit in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and still remains their most commercially successful song.

Hey now, hey now
Don’t dream it’s over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know that they won’t win.

One man who did win in 1986 was Queensland Premier for 17 years, the irrepressible Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who, thanks to the gerrymander, managed to win 39% of the vote, and over 60% of the seats. He ruled in a state where creationism was taught alongside evolution, God Save the Queen was still sung in schools, and sex education was banned in schools.

His ultra-conservative, populist style allowed him to get away with acts like banning a book on the Red Cross because it appeared to support blacks in South Africa. On the other hand, a book that was rife with anti-Labor propaganda was distributed to Queensland schools and TAFEs.

Also at that time, with 93% of Queenslanders in favour of AIDS education in schools, Queensland police used crowbars to remove condom machines from the University of Queensland campus. Joh’s justification for this was that condom machines stop Australia from a being great nation, and Queensland from being a great state. In his words:

Homosexuals should stop that horrible lifestyle they’re living in rather than worry about condom vending machines.

This was despite his Health Minister, Mike Ahern, vigorously supporting the machines, and the National Party conference delivering Joh a string of rebuffs over the policy.

There were calls for him to go, but his maverick ambition was now to rule not just the Sunshine State, but the whole of Australia. He handed control over to his deputy and he was off. The fact that he didn’t have a federal seat didn’t seem to faze him.

I am a bushfire raging across the country. I will do everything to help save Australia from Socialism.

What became known as the Joh for PM Campaign was driven largely by a group of Gold Coast property developers who were affectionately known as ‘the white shoe brigade.’ His messages were simple–as PM he would look closely at moral standards in education, welfare, film and printed material, and bring in a 25% flat tax.

The polls showed that 1 in 5 voters supported him, and the effect on federal politics began to be felt, especially in the Federal coalition.

I’d rather push a 44 gallon drum of molasses up a hill than try to get them (Howard and Sinclair) elected.

Then the ABC’s Four Corners aired The Moonlight State, an exposé of police corruption in the sunshine state. The Fitzgerald Inquiry began, Joh self-imploded, Mike Ahern took over as Premier. It was the end of an era. Or should that be–end of an error?

Goodbye Joh, you gotta go, me oh my oh
‘Cos the time has come for you to say goodnye-oh
Don’t you worry ’bout the Fitzgerald Inquiry-oh
Just retire and spend your time eating pumpkin pie-oh
Bulldoze trees, and if you please, grow peanuts-oh
You sun of a gun, you’ve had your fun, now bugger off-oh

GRACELAND

Gumboots: Accordion Jive Hits, Vol. II doesn’t sound like a game changer, but when it arrived, as a bootleg cassette, in the life of Paul Simon, that’s exactly what it became. His career plummeting, his second marriage over, this tape opened his ears and heart to South African township music.

I tried to absorb the musical essence of the music, which was difficult, because the shape of the songs was not what I was used to.

The next step for him was to go to the source of the music, meet the musicians on the tape, record with them.

I learned a long time ago that if yoiu wanted to work in a different idiom, you can’t simply imitate what you hear. Your ears aren’t trained to the nuances. You’ve got to go to the source.

But with apartheid at its height and the cultural boycott in place, he knew that any visit would be controversial. Harry Belafonte and Quincy Jones gave him their blessing, as did the township musicians.

They decided that my coming would benefit them because I could help to give South African music a place in the international community of music similar to that of reggae.

Simon’s decision to go to South Africa split opinion between those who saw the liberal principles of rock ‘n’ roll violated, and those who said he focused world attention on the complexity and artistry of black South African culture.

Beyond the controversy, the music was a brilliant hybrid, as exciting and fresh as the blending of white country and black gospel and blues that had created rock ‘n’ roll in the first place.

The resulting album Graceland was released in 1986, ten years after the Soweto uprising, and ten years before apartheid was ended and Nelson Mandela became president. It sold 14 million copies worldwide.

MARCOS

1986 was the UN International Year of Peace and so, to mark the occasion, US President Ronald Reagan bombed the crap out of Libya, tried to get rid of Nicaragua’s left wing government, sold arms to Iran, and carried on the Star Wars program.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, propped up for so long by the US, was being tested in an election.

The one who wore the trousers in the Marcos family was Ferdinand’s wife, wannabe singer Imelda. She also wore the shoes, all 3000 pairs, and she wore a custom-made bullet proof brassiere whenever she sang at her husband’s election rallies.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings
I sing this for my Ferdinand
I know he’ll win again.

But he didn’t. Cory Aquino did. So, when the Marcos duo fled to the USA, did they they still believe that Marcos was the rightful President?

Catholic, oh is the Pope a Catholic?
Is Sinatra geriatric?
And does he have blue eyes?
Vodkas, does Gorbachev drink vodkas?
And does Imelda Marcos know her shoe size?

CHERNOBYL

Among unlikely contenders for a spot in the pop charts in 1986 was Russian composer, Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953). An excerpt from his Lieutenant Kijé Suite became the instrumental break in a song by Sting, called Russians, from his hit album of 1986, The Dream of the Blue Turtles.

In Europe and America
There’s a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets
Mr Kruschev said he will bury you
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
It would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too.

Exactly at the same time as the album was top of the charts here in Australia, a Soviet nuclear reactor was ablaze at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.

How can I save my little boy
From Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?
there is no monopoly on common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too.

The Soviets were tight-lipped about the disaster and published photos of happy Ukrainians in full traditional costume, dancing in the streets, just a few days later on May Day, with big smiles on their faces, as if nothing had ever happened.

But when the West started to experience levels of radiation a hundred times above normal, we came to learn that it was the worst nuclear disaster ever, with eventually tens of thousands of victims.

What might save us, me and you
Is if the Russians love their children too.

HATCHES, MATCHES and DISPATCHES

1986 and ‘87 proved to be bumper years for babies destined for fame- babies like Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, Baby Gaga, who would later morph into Lady Gaga.

Baby there’s no other superstar
You know that I’ll be
Papa, paparazzi
Baby you’ll be famous
Chase down until you love me
Papa, paparazzi.

And it was a great time for baby tennis players. Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, Sharapova and Ivanovic, all of whom ended up being pursued by:

Papa, paparazzi.

Deaths at that time included former opposition leader Billy Snedden, who apparently died with a smile on his face. He was last seen in public at John Howard’s policy speech, and had died, not of boredom, but of a heart attack, while having sex in the Rushcutter’s Bay Travelodge. It seems Billy had died on the job.

Other deaths included James Cagney, Liberace, Robert Helpmann and Fred Astaire who tap danced his way to:

Heaven, he’s in Heaven.

As far as weddings go, there were two big ones that each attracted millions of TV viewers.

One was that of Scott and Charlene on TV soapie,I. Played by Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue, the Ramsay Street couple’s wedding attracted a UK audience of 20 million, and featured a song sung and written by Angry Anderson, chosen by Kylie herself.

Suddenly you’re seeing me
Just the way I am
Suddenly you’re hearing me
So I’m talking just as fast as I can to you
Suddenly every part of me
Needs to know every part of you.

The other wedding was that of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, watched by 500 million worldwide. Poor old Fergie, she was never seen to match up to the glamorous Princess Diana, so reports of her broad bum, boisterous behavior, frumpish frocks and thundering thighs were like Manna from Heaven to the

Papa, paparazzi.

MALCOLM

Fortunately, the paparazzi weren’t in Memphis on Tuesday October 26 1986, when ex-Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was seen in the lobby of a sleazy $29-a-night motel, without his wallet, without his pants, and without his dignity.

An eminent person once did go
Down to Memphis where the cotton do grow
And all the lassies said ‘hello’
Donald where’s your troosers?

Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low
You got no pockets for your jewels to fo
And all the lassies shout ‘hello’
Donald where’s your troosers?

He came into the lobby feeling foul
Wearing nothing but an old bath towel
Shirt and socks and a dreadful scowl
Donald where’s your troosers?

Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low
You got no pockets for your jewels to fo
And all the lassies shout ‘hello’
Donald where’s your troosers?

Malcolm was in Memphis in his role as a member of the Eminent Persons Group, speaking at the local Country Club on the issue of justice in South Africa. He was booked in to stay at the Club, but decided to head down to the touristy Beale Street district, went to the famous Peabody Hotel for a drink, and woke at the not-so-salubrious Admiral Benbow Hotel. The rest is history, but not history that Mr Fraser has ever expanded on.

And now he’s gone back to Nareen
there’s going to be a terrible scene
When Tammie cries ‘where have you been?’
And Malcolm where’s your troosers?

Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low
You got no pockets for your jewels to fo
And all the lassies shout ‘hello’
Donald where’s your troosers.

Isn’t it funny that, after the huge contribution he made towards ending apartheid, he still better known for being caught with his pants down? Malcolm is quoted as saying ‘I wish I’d never been to bloody Memphis.

FINALE

Once Fraser left Federal politics, the coalition was in turmoil, thanks to the dysfunctional Howard/Peacock relationship, and the Joh for PM campaign. So, to cash in on coalition disunity, Prime Minister Bob Hawke announced an early election in 1987.

The Labor Party’s slogan was Let’s Stick Together, which came complete with a horribly catchy jingle written by well-known advertising man John Singleton.

Together, let’s stick together
Australians together, let’s see it through.

It was the election campaign in which Bob Hawke uttered the immortal words:

By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty.

Labor won the election resoundingly, their third win in just over 4 years.

Australians together, let’s see it through.
(Written by Bob McMullan for the Australian labor Party, Canberra.

Yes, that Bob McMullan, then National Secretary for the ALP, just before he became the member for the Canberra seat of Fraser. In fact, many of those in politics we now know and love were waiting in the wings at this time.

Bronwyn Bishop was President of the NSW Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull was lawyer for the publishing firm in the Spycatcher case, Peter Beattie ALP State Secretary for Queensland, Simon Crean President of the ACTU, Anthony Albanese research officer for Tom Uren, Clive Palmer was working on the Joh for PM campaign, and Tony Abbott was studying to be a priest. Even in these early stages of their political careers, they were all showing their true colours.

I see your true colours shining through
I see your true colours and that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colours
True colours are beautiful
Like a rainbow.

True Colors was a hit single and album for Cyndi Lauper in 1986, and in 1987, Irish band U2 reached number 3 on the album charts with The Joshua Tree, which featured this song.

I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

This was our sixth year of doing this show as the warm-up act for Archives historian Jim Stokes. Sadly, Jim retired that year, which made this his last time presenting his take on the cabinet records. We enjoyed his company and his wry look at what could have been a dry topic in other hands.

He has read Cabinet papers
he has run through the file
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
He has dug
He has delved
He has caled the Archives’ shelves
Only to be with you

But he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for
But he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.

Ladies and gentlemen, the man who still hasn’t found what he’s looking for, Dr Jim Stokes.

Jim Stokes 1986-1987 talk
(Used by permission of National Archives of Australia)

NOTES

Songs, YouTubes and credits
You’re the Voice, co-written by Keith Reid (lyricist of Whiter Shade of Pale), Chris Thompson (lead singer of Manfred Mann Earth Band), Andy Qunta (keyboard player with Australian band Icehouse), and Maggie Ryder (session singer with the Eurhythmics, Queen, Manfred Mann Earth Band etc).
See the $10, 000 video made to market the song at the time
Look out for cameos by then husband and wife, Jacki Weaver and Derryn Hinch. And better still if you’d like to see Julian Assange singing the song as part of his unsuccessful campaign to gain a Senate seat in Victoria at the 2013 election, try Julian Assange dons mullet to sing You’re the Voice

The full recording of the Kennett/Peacock conversation can be heard on YouTube

See more of Hoges at the Oscars

Don’t Dream It’s Over written by Neil Finn

Goodbye Joh parody by Melbourne singer- songwriter Bruce Watson, published in The Balls of Bob Menzies by Warren Fahey (based on Jambalaya written by Hank Williams)

For an acclaimed documentary on the Graceland project, YouTube has  Part 1 and Part 2 here.

Feelings written by Louis Gasté and Morris Albert. Parody by John Shortis. Experience Imelda singing for Ruby Wax and hear her turn Feelings into a dental serenade

Hear and see the Azusa Pacific University Symphony Orchestra perform Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé Suite live in 2013.

Catch the video clip of Sting singing ‘Russians’
Russians is written by Sting

Paparazzi written by Lady Gaga and Rob Fusari (2008).
Watch the clip on YouTube

To watch Scott and Charlene’s wedding, go here

Suddenly was written by Angry Anderson.

For the Prince Andrew/Fergie wedding, go to YouTube here

Donald Where’s Your Troosers written by Andy Stewart and Neil Grant. Parody by John Quiggin, published in The Balls of Bob Menzies by Warren Fahey

And here is the clip of the song by Cyndi Lauper ‘True Colors’ written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly

And video of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For written by U2

Books
Whispering Jack- The John Farnham Story by Clark Forbes
Paper Paradise by Glenn Wheatley
The Boy in the Bubble a Biography of Paul Simon by Patrick Humphries
Malcolm Fraser The Political Memoirs by Malcolm Fraser and Margaret Simons

Performed March 2014
Essay written Sept 2015