{"id":1915,"date":"2018-10-05T07:30:02","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T07:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2018-10-04T07:19:24","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T07:19:24","slug":"travelling-in-a-fighter-convoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/2018\/10\/05\/travelling-in-a-fighter-convoy\/","title":{"rendered":"Travelling in a fighter convoy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since the 1980s, that\u2019s what I have thought the opening line of Men at Work\u2019s Down Under is: \u201ctravelling in a fighter convoy&#8230;\u201d and not \u201ctravelling in a fried-out combie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, in my defence, I haven\u2019t actually thought about the song in decades. And back when I did give it a bit of a ponder, I was more gingerly curious about what a vegemite sandwich might be.<\/p>\n<p>Writer and lead singer Colin Hay now performs the song acoustically and you know how this goes, the song is revealed to be somewhat deeper than that original appeared. I do think that\u2019s a measure of some superb writing, when radically changing the delivery of a piece works, when the material can be delivered in gigantically different ways.<\/p>\n<p>But we\u2019ve seen that.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently there was Aha\u2019s reworking of Take On Me which, slowed down, also clarified some previously mysterious lyrics. What was originally energetic and catchy proves to be arresting and even mesmerising in its new form.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"a-ha - Take On Me (Live From MTV Unplugged)\" width=\"440\" height=\"248\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-xKM3mGt2pE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Most famously, it\u2019s the same with Mad World, originally a Tears for Fears track sung at lighspeed but then redone by Gary Jules.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/4N3N1MlvVc4<\/p>\n<p>Only, there\u2019s something different about Down Under. I saw a live acoustic video of it a week or so ago and it\u2019s stayed with me. More, yesterday Apple Music happened to throw the original at me while I was working.<\/p>\n<p>And here\u2019s the thing. That original has changed. <\/p>\n<p>That didn\u2019t happen with Take On Me, although I do now hear the lyric I kept missing in the original. I know to listen out for it but that\u2019s not the same as changing that original, altering the sound of it.<\/p>\n<p>Nor does Mad World\u2019s slow remake alter how the Tears for Fears one sounds, except I do more appreciate the writing in it.<\/p>\n<p>No, Men at Work\u2019s Down Under was this jaunty 80s track with the daft video and now the same piece in the same way is somehow more serious. I can\u2019t help it: I listen to that original and it\u2019s like I finally get it. <\/p>\n<p>Without distorting the original or loading it down with a weight it can\u2019t bear, the acoustic one is just a plain rendition that reveals it was always serious and I can\u2019t help but hear that now.<\/p>\n<p>I should say I recently caught a snippet of an interview with someone, I imagine Hay but I wasn\u2019t watching, where it was mentioned that no one notices the coffin being carried in that video. I think they said it was symbolising the death of Australian culture and I want to say I thought that was interesting but really I didn\u2019t think at all.<\/p>\n<p>Then I don\u2019t want to say that Down Under was actually a Dylaneseque howling protest song yet I am sobered by it. Specifically by how I only saw the surface jauntiness and that this is like what happened to Bruce Springsteen\u2019s Born in the USA. That\u2019s another 1980s song and to this day there are people who think it\u2019s pro-American.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s really a miserable track and the lyrics are as clear about that as can be. I\u2019ve secretly liked how I got it and people including President Ronald Reagan didn\u2019t. He used it as a campaign song, can you imagine that? Walking out to make a speech as a song about rancid poverty in America and the toll of the Vietnam conflict booms out of speakers.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine a US President being dumb.<\/p>\n<p>Well.<\/p>\n<p>Down Under is not so stridently anti-American or rather anti-Australian but still I missed what strength it has. Again, don\u2019t let me overplay this, I\u2019m not dumping huge political import onto the shoulders of a pop song.<\/p>\n<p>But have a listen. It\u2019s a good song but it\u2019s richer now.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Colin Hay - Down Under  [Santa Cruz Guitar 40th Anniversary Concert]\" width=\"440\" height=\"248\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/enuSXGZKffE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since the 1980s, that\u2019s what I have thought the opening line of Men at Work\u2019s Down Under is: \u201ctravelling in &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/2018\/10\/05\/travelling-in-a-fighter-convoy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[1418,1419,1425,1426,1415,1417,1422,1421,1416,1424,1427,1420,1423,180],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-selfdistract","tag-acoustic","tag-aha","tag-born-in-the-usa","tag-bruce-springsteen","tag-colin-hay","tag-down-under","tag-gary-jules","tag-mad-world","tag-men-at-work","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-songwriting","tag-take-on-me","tag-tears-for-fears","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4chyI-uT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1917,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/1917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}