Pop rock band
from St. Kilda that achieved its greatest successes in the eighties. At the
time best known for Down Under, that ranked high on the international
charts. In 2000 Men At Work was in the spotlight again, this time with their
catchy number Down Under, played during the closing ceremonies of the Summer
Olympics held in Sydney that year.
After a well-earned break, in 2009 Men
At Work again managed to make some noise (with the catchy number Down
Under this time) when Larrikin Music Publishing brought the band to court: they
claimed that the song was (partly) copied from a 1934 song called Kookaburra,
written by Marion Sinclair, who as it turned out still owned the rights after
all those years. Or rather: Larrikin Music Publishing owned the rights, because
Marion had died in 1988 already.
An Australian judge determined that as a matter of
fact a riff can be heard in Down Under (played on a flute) that seems more than just inspired by Kookaburra. The music publisher won and got five percent of the Down
Under revenues assigned to them, starting from 2002. If you want to find out
whether or not there were grounds for Larrikin's claim, you can check out Compare! Men At Work sued over Down Under on YouTube.
All very interesting, but isn’t this encyclopedia
supposed to explain band names? Ah, yes. Well, it seems that the singer of Men
At Work, Colin Hay, came along a sign one day that said Men At Work - obviously.
Only to pass by a group of ten road workers a little later, one digging a
channel, the remaining nine following the proceedings with great interest.
Active: 1979-1986; 1996-present, AUS
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