Down Under

Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?

                                   Sound of Thunder by Millie Simic

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There was a time during the 1980’s when the world was obsessed with Australia. You had Mad Max and Crocodile Dundee. AC/DC and INXS. Yahoo Serious and Crowded House and a dingo that ate your baby. Isn’t it ironic, then, that one of the songs in this onslaught from Oz was a warning cry about overdevelopment and the encroachment of American culture?

With a slack jaw and not much to say

Travel with me through the ether to 1981. Hear the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Feel the tug of your acid wash jeans. Lend your ears to local radio playing the latest hits.

Your fingers dance lightly atop two buttons. The commercial break is nearly over. You feel your song is coming next. It has to be next. It’s been almost three hours.

The commercial ends.

You steady the boombox with your left hand. Press Record and Play with your right.

A moment of silence. Here it comes. Hit Me With Your Best Shot will finally be yours.

Except, it’s not yours.

Because instead of Pat Benatar’s crunchy chords, the airwaves are assaulted by tinny drums. By wimpy guitars. And dear lord! Is that a flute?

My jaw hung open. The tape kept rolling.

I listened, mesmerized, to this new and admittedly catchy tune. Who on earth is this, I wondered. And what the hell was a vegemite sandwich?

"It's a very important song for me. It always felt like a strong song, right from the start. Originally, the idea came from a little bass riff that Ron Strykert, the guitar player for Men at Work, had recorded on a little home cassette demo. It was just a little bass riff with some percussion that he played on bottles which were filled with water to varying degrees to get different notes. It was a very intriguing little groove. I really loved it, it had a real trance-like quality to it. I used to listen to it in the car all the time. When I was driving along one day in Melbourne, the chords popped out and a couple of days later I wrote the verses." – Colin Hay

Thus ‘Down Under’ was born.

I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”

Down Under was the second single from Men at Work’s debut album ‘Business As Usual’ (the first was Who Can It Be Now?). It hit #1 in Australia (natch), as well as in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, America, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, and Switzerland. It also cracked the top 10 in multiple other countries.

The lyrics depict an Aussie bloke traveling around the world. He meets a strange lady, a baker in Brussels, and a den assistant in Bombay—all of whom are friendly enough and interested in the land he comes from. It’s all fun and games until we get to the ominous chorus, specifically the last two lines: Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? / You better run, you better take cover.

“The chorus is really about the selling of Australia in many ways, the overdevelopment of the country. It was a song about the loss of spirit in that country. It's really about the plundering of the country by greedy people. It is ultimately about celebrating the country, but not in a nationalistic way and not in a flag-waving sense. It's really more than that.” – Colin Hay

The flag waving came quick for Men at Work. Specifically in 1983, after Australia won the America’s Cup, an event that America had never lost up until that point. Down Under was adopted as Australia’s unofficial anthem, and has been a mainstay at bars and on the radio ever since.

As for the plundering and overdevelopment mentioned in Hay’s comment above, he was referring to British and American businesses—as well as their customs, culture, and character—which had been creeping into Australia’s fiber since the end of World War Two.

"It's ironic to me that so many people thought it was about a specific thing and that really wasn't the intention behind the song. If you listen to 'Born In The U.S.A.,' it's a similar song in that there's a lot of nuance missed because people like drinking beer and throwing their arms up in the air and feeling nationalistic. It's ultimately a song about celebration, but it's a matter of what you choose to celebrate about a country or a place. White people haven't been in Australia all that long, and it's truly an awesome place, but one of the most interesting and exciting things about the country is what was there before. The true heritage of a country often gets lost in the name of progress and development." – Colin Hay

Progress like fast-food restaurants; like Halloween and Hollywood movies; like The Dukes of Hazzard and the Super Bowl. It’s hardly a coincidence that the band is seen at the end of Down Under’s music video carrying a coffin across the sand dunes. Inside that wooden box lies OZ’s fading identity.

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Two and a half decades pass.

A question is posed on Aussie game show Spicks and Specks: “What children’s song is contained in the song ‘Down Under’?” The answer is immediate.

“Kookaburra!”

What follows is the thunder that Down Under warned of. Because what’s more American than a lawsuit?

Where women glow and men plunder

Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree was originally written by Marion Sinclair in 1932. A music teacher by trade, she entered the song in a Girl Guides competition.

SPOILER ALERT: She won.

Kookaburra became a favorite at campfires in Australia and around the world. Most kids know it. Odds are you do, too. Here’s a snippet, just in case, delivered by the dinosaur we all love to hate.

Marion Sinclair eventually passed in 1988. The copyright to Kookaburra was acquired by the publishing company Larrikin Music.

Nineteen years go by; twenty-six since Down Under’s release. Then one night, a game show contestant answers what appears to be an innocuous question. Larrikin proceeds to file a lawsuit, claiming the flute riff in Down Under was stolen from their song Kookaburra. Men at Work dismiss the claim and question Larrikin’s right to the song.

The judge overseeing the case sided with the plaintiff.

"I have come to the view that the flute riff in Down Under … infringes on the copyright of Kookaburra because it replicates in material form a substantial part of Ms. Sinclair's 1935 work." - Federal Court Justice Peter Jacobson

Jacobson ruled that Larrikin’s compensation was to be 5% of Down Under’s earnings, retroactive to 2002. This netted Larrikin about $100,000. That doesn’t sound like much at all, until you learn it cost Colin Hay $4.5 million to defend himself.

Apart from the financial loss, there was the loss of Greg Ham, who died at the age of 58 — two years after the unfavorable verdict. Ham was the one responsible for the disputed flute.

"It will be the way the song is remembered, and I hate that. I'm terribly disappointed that that's the way I'm going to be remembered - for copying something." – Greg Ham

Men at Work are still gods in Australia, and Down Under remains its unofficial anthem. They even played it during the closing ceremony at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

As for whether the song’s signature lick was or wasn’t lifted from Kookaburra, Australian opinion is mixed. Nobody seems to care much though. Except for Colin Hay.

"I'll go to my grave knowing 'Down Under' is an original piece of work. In over 20 years no one noticed the reference to 'Kookaburra.' Marion Sinclair never made any claim that we had appropriated any part of her song, and she was alive when 'Down Under' was a hit. Apparently she didn't notice either."