THE classic Vietnam protest song, I Was Only 19, has been named as one of Australia's most culturally significant songs with its addition as one of 10 new recordings in the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia selection.
Create a free account to read this article
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Other entries in the collection include the only known voice recording of an Australian soldier on his way to WWI, a Fairlight synthesiser sample used by Michael Jackson in Beat It, indigenous recordings made in Western Australia in 1959, the song from the long-running ABC children's show The Argonauts and tracks by Deborah Conway, Hilltop Hoods and the Hoodoo Gurus.
The collection was established in 2007 to recognise the contribution of recorded sound to the nation's evolving identity, from AC/DC to Waltzing Matilda and extinct indigenous languages to inspiring speeches.
Redgum lead singer John Schumann, who wrote 19, said it had been an amazing gift and its addition as one of this year's inclusions in the archive was an honour.
"Much has been said about 19 - that it helped bring our Vietnam veterans home, that it precipitated a Royal Commission, that it changed forever the way we Australians think about the men and women we send to fight our wars," he said.
"These things are for others to say, not for me."
Deborah Conway said she was delighted her track Alive and Brilliant had also been included.
"We first played it during a late summer storm in Sydney in 1992, made memorable for the amount of people dancing around crazily in plastic rain ponchose," she said.
The 2015 additions are:
* 1914 - Message recorded at Mena Camp, Cairo by Second Lieutenant Henry Miller Lanser
* 1921 - Love Will Find a Way, by Gladys Moncrieff
* 1941-72 Argonauts Row by Harold Williams
* 1959 - Aboriginal recordings by John Hutchinson
* 1979-80 Early sampling Sounds by Fairlight CMI tha turned the synthesiser, created in Sydney, into one of the most widely used in the industry, including an instantly recognisable sound used in Michael Jackson's Beat It
* 1983 - I Was Only 19, by Redgum
* 1985 - Like Wow - Wipeout by Hoodoo Gurus
* 1993 - Alive and Brilliant, by Deborah Conway
* 1995 - LSD by djhmc, Australia's "godfather of techno"
* 2003 - Nosebleed Section by Hilltop Hoods, which propelled the band to have the first Australian platinum hip-hop album.
Details at www.nfsa.gov.au
