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an NFSA website

All titles in the ‘Song’ genre

29 titles - sorted alphabetically or by year

A

Along the Road to Gundagai music – 1931

This is a famous recording of one of Australia’s most popular songs.

B

Bye Bye Baby music – 1959

The first big hit from Australia’s original rock’n'roll star.

C

The Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait music – 1898

Yamaz Sibarud is a traditional song performed by ‘Maino of Yam’, recorded during an anthropological expedition to the Torres Strait in 1898.

D

Down Under music – 1981

Released in 1981, this catchy pop song was written as a light ‘tongue-in-cheek’ dig at Australian values and became a number one hit in Australia, the UK and US.

E

Eagle Rock music – 1971

Dancing the Eagle Rock was one of Australia’s favourite pastimes in the early seventies and it still is today.

F

Fanny Cochrane Smith’s Tasmanian Aboriginal Songs music – 1899

These are the earliest recordings of traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal songs and language.

Friday on My Mind music – 1966

‘Friday on My Mind’ was the first international pop hit by an Australian band, and a landmark in the distinguished career of songwriting team Harry Vanda and George Young.

G

Georgia Lee Sings the Blues Down Under music – 1962

Georgia Lee was the first Indigenous Australian female singer to release an album. This was also the first Australian album to be recorded in stereo.

Give a Little Credit to your Dad; Lonesome for You, Mother Dear music – 1939

Two songs by then unknown country singer Buddy Williams, recorded in 1939.

H

The Hen Convention music – 1897

The oldest surviving Australian sound recording is a novelty song featuring chicken impersonations.

I

I Am Woman music – 1972

‘I am Woman’ by Helen Reddy was a worldwide hit and the first song by an Australian artist or composer to reach number one in America.

I’ll Never Find Another You music – 1964

A 1964 song by The Seekers, written and produced by Tom Springfield, which became the first million-selling record by an Australian band.

(I’m) Stranded music – 1976

A seminal Australian punk song.

I Should Be So Lucky music – 1987

The second single from Kylie’s debut album, Kylie (1988), penned by English pop writing-producing phenomenon Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

J

Jack Luscombe music – 1953

An oral history containing the first recorded collection of Australian folk song.

Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out from Jail) music – 1983

'Jailanguru Pakarnu’ ('Out from Jail’) was the first rock song recorded and released in an Aboriginal language (Luritja).

L

The Landing of the Australian Troops in Egypt historical – c1916

A short commercial recording dramatising the Australian troops arriving in Egypt, before Gallipoli.

Living in the 70’s music – 1974

Unrestrained by cultural cringe, the title song of this Skyhooks album captured what it was like growing up in the suburbs of Australia in the 1970s.

The Loner music – 1973

‘The Loner’ by Vic Simms is regarded as Australia’s great lost classic album of Aboriginal protest songs.

M

Maranoa Lullaby music – 1950

Harold Blair was the first Aboriginal Australian to achieve recognition as a classical singer.

Most People I Know (Think That I’m Crazy) music – 1972

The song ‘Most People I Know (Think That I’m Crazy)’ saw the coming of age of Australian rock music.

P

A Pub With No Beer music – 1957

Slim Dusty’s original recording from 1957 of one of his most famous songs.

R

Rebetika: Songs of Greece music – 1986

Rebetika music evolved in the 1920s, combining jail songs and hashish-smoking songs of the Greek underworld with music brought to Greece by refugees from the Greek-Turkish War.

S

Swanston St Shamble; Two Day Jag music – 1944

The first published recordings of Graeme Bell’s Dixieland Band made in Melbourne in 1944.

T

Treaty music – 1991

Aboriginal pop song from the 1990s with a powerful political message.

Tribal Music of Australia music – 1953

These are the first commercially available recordings of Australian Aboriginal music.

W

Waltzing Matilda music – 1926

This was the first recording of Australia’s national song.

We Have Survived music – 1981

The No Fixed Address version of Bart Willoughby’s ‘We Have Survived’ has became an unofficial anthem for Australia’s Aboriginal community.

Wrap Me Up With My Stockwhip and Blanket music – 1936

New Zealand-born Tex Morton created an awareness that country and western music could be an Australian form as much as it was an American form.