As we mark the end of Oztober: Verity’s Top 5 Aussie Tracks

The soundtrack to my Aus


Article heading image for As we mark the end of Oztober: Verity’s Top 5 Aussie Tracks

Everyone has their favourite Aussie tracks and our Triple M team are happy to lay it all on the line.

Here is what makes Verity’s list in the last day of celebrating Oztober

ACDC- Thunderstruck

Released in 1990 from the album The Razors Edge, it’s the epitome of a pump up song is it not?

The best memories for me in hearing this song are watching my older brother run out on the WAFL ground for Peel one day, (it being the clubs’ chosen song and all). I also fondly remember watching the self-titled Aussie film with my family, it came out in 2004 starring Damon GameauStephen CurryRyan Johnson where after a near death experience, five Boys, all devoted AC/DC fans, make a pact to bury their best friend next to the grave of Bon Scott. 12 years later, having gone their different ways, they come together to fulfill the promise.

Released in  1971 from Daddy Who? Daddy Cool, this tune always manages a good bop of the head and swaying of the hips.

I don’t know of true Aussie party that hasn’t played this song. Actually in recent times attending social events that usually require senses of decorum, like weddings, I have found that this song entices guys to drop their dacks and rock out like no one it watching. Apparently this tradition "Eagle Rock" is notorious in Australia. Since the mid-1980s, when the song is played in public, it is common for Australian students (largely male) to unstrap their belts and hobble around with their pants around their ankles, the norm…

Vance Joy- Fire & the Flood

Released in 2014 from Dream Your Life Away, this to me is one of his best. I refrain from giving it the number one title as I feel like Vance Joy has got a lot more to come. Sure, not what you think of putting on the playlist in rocking out with an Aussie BBQ, it definitely is on the more relaxed/chilled side of the music spectrum and that’s why I love it, why I love most of his tracks actually. 

Paul Kelly- How to Make Gravy

From 1996, I actually admittedly only really took in this song for the first time this year, even though his Greatest Hits album would play constantly in Dad’s ute over Harvest/Seeding/Spraying- yeah look, all year round. It tells the story of a newly imprisoned man writing a letter to his brother, in which the prisoner laments that he will be missing the family's Christmas celebrations. It actually does make me tear up a little at times, a really emotive song- like a lot of what Kelly produces. That same character apparently appears in Kelly's earlier songs as well, "To Her Door" (1987) and "Love Never Runs on Time" (1994). The gravy recipe is genuine too apparently – Kelly learnt it from his first father-in-law. 

Men At work- Down Under

It’s the mention of the beauty that is a Vegemite sandwich that brings this song to the list really. Released in 1981 the album Business as Usual, Men At Work created something here that I think encapsulates the soundtrack to an Aussie way of life. The lyrics could be read to be about a man travelling the globe, proud to be an Aussie. I couldn’t have not included this song in celebrating Oztober this month, it just couldn’t be so.

31 October 2017




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