Down Under (song)
| "Down Under" | |||||||||
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7" Australian single
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| Single by Men at Work | |||||||||
| from the album Business as Usual | |||||||||
| Released | October 1981 | ||||||||
| Format | 7" | ||||||||
| Recorded | 1981 | ||||||||
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| Length | 3:42 | ||||||||
| Label | Columbia | ||||||||
| Writer(s) | |||||||||
| Producer(s) | Peter McIan | ||||||||
| Men at Work singles chronology | |||||||||
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"Down Under" (also known as "Land Down Under") is a song recorded by Australian rock band Men at Work. It was originally released in 1980 as the B-side to their first local single titled "Keypunch Operator", released before the band signed with Columbia Records. Both early songs were written by the group's co-founders, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert. The early version of "Down Under" has a slightly different tempo and arrangement from the later Columbia release. The most well known version was then released on Columbia in October 1981 as the third single from their debut album Business as Usual (1981).
The hit song went to number one in their home country of Australia in December 1981, and then topped the New Zealand charts in February 1982. Released in North America in mid-1982, the song topped the Canadian charts in October. In the United States, the song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on 6 November 1982 at No. 79, and reached No. 1 in January 1983 where it spent four non-consecutive weeks. It eventually sold over two million copies in the US alone. Billboard ranked it at No. 4 for 1983.
In the UK, the song topped the charts in January and February 1983, and is the only Men at Work song to make the UK top 20. The song also went No. 1 in Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Switzerland, and was a top 10 hit in many other countries. It remains a popular and patriotic song in Australia.
Colin Hay told Songfacts: "The chorus is really about the selling of Australia in many ways, the overdevelopment of the country. It was a song about the loss of spirit in that country. It's really about the plundering of the country by greedy people. It is ultimately about celebrating the country, but not in a nationalistic way and not in a flag-waving sense. It's really more than that."
Hay has also said that the lyrics for "Down Under" were inspired by the Barry McKenzie character.
The lyrics are about an Australian man travelling the globe, proud of his nationality, and about his interactions with people he meets on his travels who are interested in his home country.
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Wikipedia