Everything I know about Australia comes from the band Men at Work's early eighties hit "Down Under." Now it turns out the whole thing was based on a TISSUE OF LIES AND THIEVERY: "Australian band Men at Work copied a well-known children's campfire song for the flute melody in its 1980s hit 'Down Under' and owes the owner years of royalties, a court ruled Thursday. 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree' was written more than 70 years ago by Australian teacher Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides competition, and the song has been a favorite around campfires from New Zealand to Canada." I feel so betrayed. I think I'm going to go home and throw out my Young Einstein DVD just to be safe.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
24
This from the guy who calls Australia "criminal island." How surprised can you be?
I like to think of Florida as the Australia of the United States.
I remember being like TEN and going on vacation to Florida and after being there for like an hour and turning to my dad and saying 'there's a lot of crime here, isn't there?'
Wasn't that actually Georgia?
Yeah, everybody knows it's the 'criminal continent'
Who can it be now? Why, Australia's Colin Quinn doing an impression of Gordon Sumner doing an impression of Phil Collins, of course, that's who. http://shrinkify.com/1otk
i wrote doctor heckyll and mr. jive.
by the way.
So sad! It was such a clever sample.
Gay your life must be!
Oh how we loved that in elementary school. I don't think we had yet cottoned to the possibilities of "Merry, merry king of the bush is he!"
Wow, I've only just cottoned to those possibilities.
(I'm a little slow on the uptake.)
I can think only of the Cannanes, my all-time favorite Australian band, and their song Vivienne (one of the saddest songs ever written): "There's something about Australia/You want to kick it when it's down/But just because it is a failure/doesn't mean I'm leaving Newtown..."
Here's a YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAtJWOrXwlc
Don't forget, Australia also has that "Tie Me Kangaroo Down" song. So that's three anthems.
What about "Waltzing Matilda?" You got something against jolly swagmen?
This was a sort of mondegreen for me. "He sang as he sat and waiting while his billy boiled..." As a kid, I thought Billy Boiled was some guy who'd show up any minute, but didn't.
This ruling pisses me off. First, it rapes a part of my young teen years that enjoyed listening to this ditty on my Sanyo (not Sony) walkman-line device with the orange headphones.
Second the plaintiff in this ruling is painting themselves as the underdog:
"It's a big win for the underdog," Larrikin's lawyer Adam Simpson told reporters outside court.
Really underdog? Really? A large music publishing company who gained the rights to a 1935 children's song in 1990 whose creator died in 1988 is an underdog?
Sounds like a bunch of creative vultures.
You got this totally right. These "Men Have Worked" tens of thousands of hours promoting a song they wrote. A song that gently riffs on the hook of an Aussie song as ubiquitous as "Happy Birthday," (a song who's creator was ALIVE WHEN THE SONG "DOWN UNDER" WENT INTERNATIONAL.)
I expected the US press to pick this story up. This is complete fucking bullshit.
Late to this discussion, but how was the publisher even allowed to bring this suit after so much time? It's not like the song has been underground lo these 20 years.
This is all fine and dandy, but how can we sleep while our beds are burning?
Dr Matthew Rimmer informs us that:
Copyright Law = Life + 70 years.
He may call this excessive exploitation.
I call it a much-needed reform on Zombie Liberation.
Did anyone else notice that his skin was trying to jump off of his face?
Clearly a zombie.
The fuck is he bitching about?
You know who's vindicated? My ten-year-old self who tried to convince my older brother that the Men at Work song always reminded me of "Kookabura" for a reason.
Who's full of shit, now, Todd? Who?
For the record, Canadians do NOT sing "Kookabura Sits in the Old Gum Tree."
kookooburra sits in the old gum tree
merry merry king of the bush is he
laugh kookooburra
laugh kookooburra
gay your life must be!
Mrs Diggle
6th grade ozzie music teacher
ps-I learned that in Canada.
I sang that kookaburra song as a kid. Circa 1960s-1970s. In Pittsburgh. In Pennsylvania. In the USA. I'm surprised people really have not heard it before.