The Cold Chisel Connection

Confession time. 

I like Cold Chisel.

Maybe it's because I'm listening to the audiobook of Jimmy Barnes' Working Class Boy, but I've got the Cold Chisel back catalogue running through my head at the moment. It's strangely comforting  - something I never thought I'd say about Cold Chisel. 

In times past, I used to say that I hated this group. It wasn't for me. Too bogan. Too common. Being a child of the seventies, teenager of the eighties, my musical tastes ran more to Talking Heads, The B'52s, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins (don't judge). I had tastes that ran more to the electronic, the strange and the edgy.

But then again, I was raised on Countdown, and once it's in your soul, Australian Rock Music is a part of your DNA. So yes, Skyhooks, Dragon, Sherbet, Mondo Rock, Mental as Anything - you name it, I can sing along with it. 

But Cold Chisel used to leave me cold. Them and INXS, but I had a grudge against the latter after a 1984 snow camp saw them play The Swing, on repeat, 24 hours a day for seven days straight. I still can't listen to The Swing without wanting to run in the other direction. Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell album does the same thing to me. 

And Cold Chisel was for bogans. It was too rough, to harsh. It was music for the AC/DC crowd - who I also, now, begrudgingly like. 

And then came college, and somehow the words to Khe Sahn got tattooed into my brain. On my 50th birthday I showed my bogan roots by singing this secondary Australian anthem, word for word. Yeah. 

There are some lovely ballads, like, When the War is Over and Flame Trees. There are the songs that make you want to dance, there are songs that make you want to drink - and there are songs which make you feel distinctly Australia. Songs like Cheap Wine and Bow River. 

Strangely, maybe gathered by osmosis, I know the names of Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss, Don Walker, Steve Prestwich, Charlie Drayton and Phil Small. I have no idea how this information settled in my head. 

Then you look into the songs, and there is some cellular recognition. 

I have a line from Cheap Wine that runs regularly through my head. 

    'Anytime you want to find me, I don't have a telephone, I'm another world away.... but I'll always be at home'.

Have you any idea how good that line is to sing? The chord runs, the trills, the silences... not that I'm a singer, but I love the feel of that line as you belt it out in the shower. 

Maybe I'm just a little more forgiving of my middle class Australian roots. Maybe I've succumbed to the zeigeist. Maybe, as I age, I get the honesty of the lyrics in songs like Khe Sahn, Forever Now and Cheap Wine. 

Maybe I now recognise that Cold Chisel are part of an Australia that I used to deny. 

Listening to Barnsie's book, all I want to do is take in the nine-year-old Jim, tell his tortured soul that things will turn out alright. It's a very sad, very horrible upbringing he relates. But it's helped me tap into the angst.

It's made me a lot more compassionate of myself and my own roots. 

Cold Chisel is a part of me that cannot be denied any more. And I say this loud and proud. 

Today's Song: