I think everybody should do a cover of this song, it would help it in becoming a contender for the National Anthem of Australia. Clearly its only a matter of time considering the elemental force of this 80s classic by The Triffids, written by the late David McComb (who is finally getting some recent belated interest) and containing such intense longing.
So. Here is the Beardwagon contribution, sounding drunken earnest & distorted like it was recorded live by a few friends in a garage on a hot afternoon after much BBQ tending, casual revelation and beer drinking.
Wide Open Road
And the full res version for download. 40mb wav file.
There was something desperate I always loved in this song, I heard it first on a Blondie greatest hits album. They recorded it as the first track on Parallel Lines and it was a cover of a song from a few years earlier by The Nerves. There is a great pop punk playing energy there, but its the phrasing & delivery Debbie Harry gives it that gave it a special place in my heart, the upfront delivery and the fullthroated rockout undercut by the weird scene being played out in the lyric. This was recorded in one take with some minimal voice doubling overdubs & an extra keyboard, mostly just live guitar & voice late at night in a room.
Hanging On The Telephone
Outdoor Type was written in the early/mid 90s sometime by Tom Morgan from Smudge and popularized by the Lemonheads not long after. When I first heard it around that time it was blaring onto the footpath from the Half a Cow shop in Glebe Point Rd & seemed to crystallize everything about the slacker indie rock aesthetic of the time while mocking it with some of my favourite lyrics.
Outdoor Type
Outdoor Type 24bit (50mb)
I started writing this song in my head while we were watching an old Aki Kaurismaki film on SBS one night. I love his films. There was nothing happening, someone was standing drunk in a doorway waiting for a taxi, oblivious. Seemed to be early morning, I only caught twenty minutes of it but it might have been Shadows in Paradise. This one was recorded in a pretty loose fashion & I seemed to be following the sound of that cavernous kick drum weaving through the verses. Again Shannon O’Neill mixed this so it scrubs up OK.
What Part of That
What Part of That 24bit (50mb)
Jim Jones was written as late as 1907 according to Wikipedia, though the narrator in the song is singing from the late 1700’s about his transportation to Sydney in convict chains. I came across the lyrics reading a newspaper article about the history of Sydney & found a version with a chord sequence on the website of a Boston Folk Society. I’m not sure if these are the chords that are most used for the song, although it is a Colonial Classic of sorts I’ve never heard another version, though I read here that Bob Dylan did one on his early 90s acoustic album.
It seems to lend itself to being played fast (and for me this is quite fast), it’s the sort of song I could hear The Pogues doing a version of. This version was recorded pretty quickly (I think this is the first take) and mixed just as fast.
Jim Jones
24bit master wav (60mb)
