You're the Voice

John Farnham's big hit

After talking about the Little River Band on Friday, might as well continue on with the vocalist who joined the band after the big shift. This was his breakout hit, just after he left the band. He had made some poor financial decisions and was pretty desperate when the demo made it his way. He immediately knew it could make him so he went down to his basement and recorded the song, swapping out the bass in the demo with bagpipes rendering it one of the few bagpipe solos in popular music.

The song was a written response to songwriter Chris Thompson¹ missing an anti-nuke rally. He was with collaborators Andy Qunta and Maggie Ryder and they wrote it while they watched the march on tv. Procol Harum lyricist Keith Reid was brought in to finalize the lyrics. Thompson wanted to record it but was told by his publisher that protest songs were old news². Qunta was playing with Icehouse (of Don’t Believe Anymore fame) at the time and that’s how the song made it to Australia and in Farnham’s hands.³

The song went to #1 in Australia and won the ARIA⁴ for Song of the Year. It was huge in Canada and Europe but didn’t make a big dent in the US. It’s now considered the unofficial Australian anthem.

The song about taking personal action to effect political change, a message that resonates just as strongly today.

We're all someone's daughter
We're all someone's son
How long can we look at each other
Down the barrel of a gun?

You're the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear
We're not gonna sit in silence
We're not gonna live with fear

Directed by prolific music video director Meiert Avis, the video starts off with black and white footage of a bombing run. It then moves into a scene with a drunk man⁵ yelling at his wife,⁶ who then yells back while their daughter looks on, shot in black and white. The video moves to colour when Farnham moves from walking by text on a wall and a row of people to concert footage. He didn’t actually have a band at that point so his manager called in favours and got James and Vince Leigh from Pseudo Echo and Greg Macainsh from Skyhooks to appear.

Heart recorded a cover of the song in 1991 after Ann Wilson heard the song in London. Their music video is more overtly anti war, mixing in concert footage with clips from various conflicts, shots of children around the word, and footage of various protests. This video is also in black and white except for some studio footage of the sisters.

Enjoy your song of the day!

1. Lead singer in Manfred Mann's Earth Band

2. He sings it in concert - this is from 2007:

3. For the song’s 30th anniversary, an article was written about its recording talking to all the major players.

4. The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards

5. Played by Australian TV personality and later senator Derryn Hinch

6. Played by Oscar nominated actor Jacki Weaver