Table of Contents
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.
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