This week in 1983
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Men At Work Kajagoogoo
Eddy Grant The Belle Stars Tears For Fears
Laura Branigan Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes Phil Collins
Wham! Fleetwood Mac A classic top ten from the eighties this week, with three songs that made No 1 (‘Down Under’, ‘Too Shy’ and ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’), as well as the reissue of debut single and two songs that sold more than in million in the US alone: the late pumping ‘Gloria’ and founding member self-composed ‘Electric Avenue’.
Australian band first released a version of ‘Down Under’ in 1980 as the B-side to their debut single ‘Keypunch Operator’. After the band signed to major label Columbia, a new version of the song, released as the third single from Men At Work’s debut album ‘Business As Usual’, climbed to the top of the charts in their native Australia in late 1981.
Over the next 13 months the song conquered charts in many more markets and by early February 1983, ‘Down Under’ was sitting on top of the charts in the US and the UK (and also Ireland). It enjoyed four (non consecutive) weeks at the top of America’s Billboard Hot 100, where it sold in excess of two million copies.
In a high-profile copyright lawsuit in 2010, Larrikin Music Publishing won a case alleging that the flute riff in ‘Down Under’ was taken from a popular Aussie nursery rhyme ‘Kookaburra’, written in 1932. Men At Work’s who had performed the flute riff at the centre of the case, took the court ruling particularly hard, and worries that he would only be remembered for copying someone else’s music are said to have lead to depression and anxiety. He died aged 58 on April 19, 2012, after suffering a heart attack.
Cherished as a patriotic song by many Aussies ‘Down Under’ is still a hugely popular tune in the band’s native land where, to this day, it’s played at many sporting events. – JH