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Down Under (ABRIDGED)(WORD)
Down Under (ABRIDGED)(PDF)
Down Under (FULL)(WORD)
Down Under (FULL)(PDF)
ON BUG Night we'll play the abridged version. To play along with the video below in GCEA tuning, put your capo on the 2nd fret and use the FULL songsheet.
The early version of "Down Under" has a slightly different tempo and arrangement from the later Columbia release. The most well known version was then released on Columbia in October 1981 as the third single from their debut album Business as Usual (1981). The hit song went to number one in their home country of Australia in December 1981, and then topped the New Zealand charts in February 1982. The song topped the Canadian charts in October 1982. In the United States, the song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on 6 November 1982 at No. 79, and reached No. 1 in January 1983 where it spent four non-consecutive weeks. The lyrics to Down Under depict an Australian man travelling the globe, who meets people who are interested in his home country. The story is based in part on singer Colin Hay's own experiences, including a prominent reference to a Vegemite sandwich. Slang and drug terms are featured in the lyrics. They open with the singer travelling in a fried-out Kombi, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie. In Australian slang "fried-out" means overheated, Kombi refers to the Volkswagen Type 2 combination van, and having "a head full of zombie" refers to the use of a type of marijuana. Hippie trail refers to a subcultural tourist route popular in 1960s and 70s which stretched from Western Europe to South-East Asia. The song also contains the refrain, where beer does flow and men chunder. To "chunder" means to vomit.