1981Released
3:42

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Down Under. By Songfacts®.

The "Land Down Under" is Australia, where the group is from. The lyrics were written by lead singer Colin Hay, who explained in his Songfacts interview: "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."

Colin Hay told Songfacts about composing the song: "It's a very important song for me. It always felt like a strong song, right from the start. Originally, the idea came from a little bass riff that Ron Strykert, the guitar player for Men at Work, had recorded on a little home cassette demo. It was just a little bass riff with some percussion that he played on bottles which were filled with water to varying degrees to get different notes. It was a very intriguing little groove. I really loved it, it had a real trance-like quality to it. I used to listen to it in the car all the time. When I was driving along one day in Melbourne, the chords popped out and a couple of days later I wrote the verses."

Barry Humphries is an Australian entertainer who has created many popular characters, including Dame Edna Everidge. He was also the voice of Bruce the Shark in the movie Finding Nemo. Colin explained his influence on this song: "He's a master of comedy and he had a lot of expressions that we grew up listening to and emulating. The verses were very much inspired by a character he had called Barry McKenzie, who was a beer-swilling Australian who traveled to England, a very larger-than-life character."

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Down Under.
BKey
MinorMode
4/4Time Signature
107BPM

Album

The album Down Under is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Down Under.
Columbia
1982 CBS Inc.

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