In this song, Colin Hay (best known as the frontman for Men At Work), sings about a girl he grows up with who presumably kills herself, leaving him a note that reads: Hey, darlin' boy Don't you cry for me I am forever yours Now that I am free We'll be together Throw stones into the sea There'll be no others there Just you and me He dreams about her, thinking of the day they can be together, throwing stones into the sea. It's a song that demonstrates Hay's prowess for telling a poignant story, which made his solo shows a big draw.
In our 2017 interview with Colin Hay, he said that "Maggie" is a real person, but he made up the story. "The person was this girl that I knew when I was young when I lived in Scotland," he said. "I was sitting in my house in Los Angeles about 20 years ago. I hadn't written a song for a while, and I was feeling a little guilty. I was feeling like I hadn't really been working on songs like I should have. It was a Sunday and I thought, 'Well, it's unlikely that I'm going to go to church.' So, I just thought, 'I better write a song. I'll try to write a song.' I sat down on this chair and I had a guitar. I just thought about this girl that I knew when I was young. She came into my mind and then I just wrote down the song in about 40 minutes. And while I was writing the song, the verses, I was weeping convulsively. So, it was just a story that came from somebody real, but the actual body of the story is fiction."
Hay has described the real Maggie as an "older woman" he liked in Scotland - she was 9 years old and he was 8.
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.