"The Real Thing" is the debut single by Australian singer Russell Morris, released in 1969. His version, which was produced by Ian "Molly" Meldrum and written by Johnny Young, was a huge hit in Australia and has become an Australian rock classic. It also achieved success in the United States of America, reaching the top of the charts in Chicago and New York City.

Young had originally written the song for Meldrum's friend Ronnie Burns, but when Meldrum heard Young playing it backstage during a taping of the TV pop show Uptight, he determined to secure the song for Morris, reportedly going to Young's home that night with a tape recorder and refusing to leave until Young had taped a "demo" version of the song for him.

In collaboration with engineer John Sayers, Meldrum radically transformed "The Real Thing" from Young's original vision of a simple acoustic ballad into a heavily produced studio masterpiece, extending it to an unheard-of six minutes in length and overdubbing the basic track with many additional instruments, vocals and sound effects. The bed track used the services of The Groop as backing band, with vocal contributions from Danny Robinson (Wild Cherries), The Chiffons, Maureen Elkner, with Sue Brady and Judy Condon, guitarist Roger Hicks from Zoot — who composed and played the song's distinctive acoustic guitar intro - and Billy Green who played electric guitar and sitar. The children's choir singing toward the end is the Hitler Youth singing "Die Jugend Marschiert" (Youth on the March). The single is reported to have cost A$10,000 — the most expensive single ever made in Australia up to that time (the typical budget for an entire album at the time) — and features one of the earliest uses of the studio technique known as "flanging" on an Australian recording. "The Real Thing" became a national number one hit for Morris in mid-1969 and is widely considered to be one of the finest Australian pop-rock recordings of the era.

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