19 Favourite Aussie Songs

Being far from home has made me nostalgic for good Aussie music.

Four Seasons in One Day is currently on high rotation because there is a special relationship a Melburnian has with Crowded House. Nothing musically sums up the Melbourne lifestyle so neatly. I wear layered clothes, picnic in the city and love trams – because ‘that’s Melbourne’.

When I started dating George, I made him a mix tape topped with George’s Breathe In Now and tailed with Georgy Girl by The Seekers. I present below the 19 tracks that in one way or another celebrate the wonderfulness of George and Australia.

Breathe In Now
George (Polyserena 2002) Brisbane
A song that’s given me great comfort since I was 19. It’s serendipitous I can share this with 19 yo George. This song is lovely, delicate and transcendant.

Just  a Boy
Angus and Julia Stone (A Book Like This 2007) Sydney
‘One kiss from you and I’m drunk up on your potion’ – the gag is I’m a lightweight, so one kiss should do it. Other favs The Beast, Paper Aeroplanes.

Ballet
Tara Simmons (All The Ammendments EP 2007) Brisbane
Introduced by darling Jenny O’Joy of Local and Vocal – this song is graceful and delightful, just like dancer George.

We Won’t Run
Sarah Blasko (As Day Follows Night 2007) Sydney
I saw Blasko at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games – as she sang Don’t Dream It’s Over, snow gently drifted across the arena. She is the darling angel of Australian music.

Lay Everything On Me
Oh Mercy (In The Nude For Love EP 2009) Melbourne
I once privately serenade by these lads (on Different Strokes with Jade Gulliver). Bloody good and attractive musos. Also check out Get You Back.

Fall At Your Feet
Clare Bowditch (She Will Have Her Way 2005) Melbourne
A Crowded House favourite sung by the amazing Bowditch. Clare’s song Lips Like Oranges is also worth checking out (especially this video where she forgets the ‘effin words!).

Heart’s A Mess
Gotye (Like Drawing Blood 2006) Melbourne
Wally De Backer is genius and this song is simply beautiful, even if a tad melancholy.

This Old Love
Lior (Autumn Flow 2005) Melbourne
A wholly adorable song about lovers growing old together (no pressure George).

Space They Cannot Touch
Kate Miller-Heidke (Little Eve 2007) Brisbane
One of my favourite interviewees, Miller-Heidke is an incredible vocalist and quite a funny lyricist (see The Facebook Song).

Dear Daniel
The Little Stevies (Grow Up 2006) Melbourne
Robin and I treaded the same theatre boards (he memorably on stage, and me not memorably backstage). This is a happy tune to bop to.

Strangers in the Wind
Cut Copy (In Ghost Colours 2008) Melbourne
This band is sex. Their music is the perfect soundtrack to everything. Especially sex. Because they ARE sex.

Electricity
The Avalanches (Since I Left You 2000) Melbourne
Opera is uber cool. Antoinette Halloran provides vocals to Daft Punk samples and a gnarly mix of Australian awesome.

Walking On A Dream
Empire Of The Sun (Walking On A Dream 2008) Sydney
Forget walking, the riff is imminently danceable.

Time To Begin
Katie Noonan (Skin 2007) Brisbane
Of George fame, Katie’s first ‘performance’ was taking the curtain call for her mother at the opera in nappies. Cute. My fav K-Noo is a cover of Crazy.

Embrace
Pnau (Self titled 2008) Sydney
Nick Littlemore from Empire of the Sun gets another go. Teamed with NZ’s Ladyhawke this song will get you grooving like a giant strawberry.

Black Cats
Bertie Blackman (Secrets and Lies 2009) Sydney
This song is so unambiguously lustful with its repeated mentions of ‘sex and sweat’.

Clap Your Hands
Sia (We Are Born 2010) Adelaide
This song comes with the best video. Sia is a quirky and loveable hero of the Aussie musical scene.

I Love It (Acoustic Version)
Sneaky Sound System (Self titled 2006) Sydney
Originally a dance track, the acoustic version shows off the glorious vocals of Connie Mitchell. I miss dancing my tits off to Sneaky Sound System, but sure it’s only a matter of time before they playing in London.

Georgy Girl
The Seekers (Come The Day 1966) Melbourne
This song must hold a record as one of the most recognised Australian songs (that’s not sung by Kylie). This song is all rainbows and sunshine.

Bad, Bad Romance

American Idol has found its way to Vietnam with some interesting results.

While blessed with a culture that loves singing (in rural areas having a karaoke machine is more important than having a flushing toilet and running hot water) we seem to lack the quality of candidates that are needed to really give the show the X factor. It’s pretty bad.

Presenting the Lady Gaga of Vietnam…

Hello Vietnam, Xin Ciao Vietnam

Sitting on the dock of the bay in the prison island of Phu Quoc

I found this song while on a catamaran sailing to the old prison island (now resort paradise) of Phu Quoc.

Sung by a 23 year old Belgium born Vietnamese girl whose parents met there, it really resonates with me as an Australian born Vietnamese lad who’s parents met in Melbourne. Her name is Pham Quynh Anh and her sentiments echo those of my own.

Like her, my whole life I’ve wondered the notion of home and identity. If I wasn’t born in Vietnam, am I Vietnamese?

Reflecting on my life, I so know that in my weakest moments it has always been the innate Vietnamese spirit of resilience that has seen me through.

Vietnam has been a country forged by war. It has stood up to all the great warring nations of the world, we’ve defeated ancient Chinese rulers twice, stymied the Mongol Hordes twice, while the great armies of France, Japan, Britain, America each attempted hold our lands to no avail. Our blood flows with a fighting and winning spirit.

That aside, this wonderful song by Pham Quynh Anh really captures the essence of why I came back to Vietnam. I find myself restraining tears as I listen to this song, because I too have come back to learn of my homeland, my culture and my ancestry. I came to be with my people; among the vistas of luscious green and pure cerulean blue, under the blazing red sun lives my nation of golden people.

Tell me all about this name, that is difficult to say.
It was given me the day I was born.

Want to know about the stories of the empire of old.
My eyes say more of me than what you dare to say.

All I know of you is all the sights of war.
A film by Coppola, the helicopter’s roar.

One day I’ll touch your soil.
One day I’ll finally know my soul.
One day I’ll come to you.
To say hello… Vietnam.

Tell me all about my colour, my hair and my little feet
That have carried me every mile of the way.

Want to see your house, your streets. Show me all I do not know.
Wooden sampans, floating markets, light of gold.

All I know of you is the sights of war.
Hello Vietnam
A film by Coppola, the helicopter’s roar.

One day I’ll touch your soil.
One day I’ll finally know my soul.
One day I’ll come to you.
To say hello… Vietnam.

And Buddha’s made of stone watch over me
My dreams they lead me through the fields of rice
In prayer, in the light…I see my kin
I touch my tree, my roots,my begin

One day I’ll touch your soil.
One day I’ll finally know my soul.
One day I’ll come to you.
To say hello… Vietnam.

One day I’ll walk your soil
One day I’ll finally know my soul
One day I’ll come to you
To say hello…Vietnam
To say hello…Vietnam
To say xin chào… Vietnam

Hot and Cold, Cut and Uncut

I’m hot and cold when it comes to Katy Perry’s music.

Yet she’s considered sizzling here and is a headline acts at Singapore Singfest music festival.

Her claim to fame in Australia was I Kissed A Girl. Depending on who you talk to in Australia, it’s considered both a pro- and anti- gay song by the gay community. In Singapore however, the locals didn’t get to decide for themselves because the song was banned altogether from radio and TV, allegedly for implicit references to unnatural sex.

Rumour has it the censors originally simply bleeped the word “kissed” to make the song less unsavory - but that would have left us with a rather amusing lyric:

“I #@%ed a girl and I liked it”

Censorship is a hot topic here with songs, films, theatre shows and artworks banned or artists forced to make cuts to remove elements the government watchdog does not approve of. Local consumers are becoming very cold to the process because what is supposedly done in the name of good sometimes seems arbitrary or even unnecessary.

When the crowd at Singfest sang I Kissed a Girl with Perry word for word, it showed that censorship is also completely ineffective too.

Let Me Decide is a campaign by Arts Engage calling for the current system of censorship to be replaced by regulation that enables art to be produced as intended by the artist. Let Me Decide wants creative works to remain uncut and give the consumer the right to watch it, hear it or be involved in it. Or not – the choice should lie with the individual.

I’m sold, I too prefer it uncut.

A Great Alp

I spent all night long watching green mountains pass me by.

That’s what audio sound waves look like after you stare at them long enough. I’ve been doing some freelance work, editing hour long interviews.

For a week I’ve been doing short spurts and getting distracted by something shiny would go for a walk (I’ve been mostly working at the National Library Building in Singapore so the bright thing has been a neon building called Iluma).

Deciding this wasn’t a winning strategy, last night I locked myself in a windowless room and forced myself to complete the work. However, by the nth hour of staring at moving green soundwaves I’d lost all momentum. Until I found this gorgeous little clip hidden away in my computer and it’s uplifting qualities have carried me since (like a sherpa up the Mt Everest of audio I had to edit).

Listen and to find out why I love dear Petro Tsalikis so much, and why he’s been such a great ‘alp – all night long.

(nb: tiredness and delirium leads to bad puns)

Petro sings ‘All Night Long’