John Farnham - Notes from Pig City

You’re the voice. Vote yes

Australian Politics, Music / January 2, 2024 / 4 minutes of reading

Not many people would find John Farnham’s You’re The Voice a difficult song to understand. Borrowing from the chorus for a moment, it makes a noise and makes it clear: we all have a role to play in civil society. From its opening line, it’s an imperviously optimistic appeal to human nature’s better angels: “We have the chance to turn the pages over”.

Most people, fortunately, are not a desperate politician on the hustings. Responding to Farnham’s endorsement of a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice to parliament – and his offering of You’re The Voice to the yes campaign – the opposition leader, Peter Dutton’s take on the song was obtuse, to say the least.

“The key line in the lyrics there, ‘You’re the voice, try and understand it,’” he told Sky News. “I honestly don’t think most Australians understand it and they want to be informed.” Apart from Dutton’s apparent unwillingness to educate himself (much less inform anyone else), attempting to sow further confusion out of such an obvious song is breathtakingly cynical.

The use of You’re The Voice by the yes campaign, and the timing of Farnham’s intervention, is pivotal. The no side has been successful so far in capitalising on uncertainty with its own appeal to ignorance, via its “If you don’t know, vote no” messaging.… Read more..

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Midnight Oil’s Resist: “We mean it, man!”

When Midnight Oil announced their final tour last November – a once-more-with-feeling run of dates around the country to support their 13th studio album, Resist – founding guitarist Jim Moginie was typically met with three responses. The first was a scoff of disbelief, usually with a reference to John Farnham’s never-ending farewell shows. The second, more humorous, was that the group should have quit while they were ahead in 1981 – “and that was from some of my friends,” Moginie says.

But the third response was a shrug of acceptance. Moginie, 66 in May, is the youngest surviving member of the band; the eldest, singer Peter Garrett, is 69 in April. There will be no long goodbyes.

“We’re more like Johnny Rotten [than Johnny Farnham] — we mean it, man!” Garrett says, invoking a line from the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen. In their early years, tour handbills promised “The Oils are coming”. Now, 50 years after their rough beginnings, they’re leaving: the stage, at least.

More than any other band, Midnight Oil have remained part of Australia’s cultural conversation. Their breakthrough classic from 1982, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – with its indelible hits Power And The Passion and US Forces – spent 177 consecutive weeks on the Australian charts.… Read more..