Friday, December 21, 2007

[captain matchbox] my wahine in wang


This one's going to take quite some setting up.

In Australia, there's a road connecting Melbourne and Sydney [about 880 km] and it varies from four lanes each way, down to a single lane [at least it did in the mid '80s]. Naturally, there is heavy transport the whole time along the legth of the highway and also naturally, there are truck-stop cafs.

These tend to be beside the road in one horse towns, with one pump and one caf. The women serving in such cafs tend to be, well, what's the most polite term, not of the highest social strata? Plus they're Australian country and Australian country tends to be fairly ... er ... down to earth.

The husbands tend to be largish and inclined to think a little more simply than the city slicker, on average. They like things to be straightforward and have interesting ideas on decor, such as plastic palm trees in tubs.

OK, so into this we have a band travelling this highway - the Hume Highway - in their psychedelic van. But not just any band - a Melbourne inner-city comedy routine whose lead singer, calling himself Microphone Conway [real name Mick], a short, slender youth with slicked-back black hair and "city" written all over him, has a penchant for lounge crooning, a la combo.

Not only that but the whole band wear hawaiian outfits and sing of 'wahines" - Hawaiian for Polynesian women or goddesses. Lastly, we have the name of the town - Wangaratta - often shortened to Wang and this might be the reason the band was there at all [although the song below was performed pre-1990].

The sparks, therefore, fly and that's the subject of this little number. It's quite typical Australian humour, which is not always obvious and can be quite as dry as British humour at times. As for the bunny with the harmonica - Oestrebunny eat your heart out [or have a carrot].

Enjoy.


4 comments:

  1. :) The lead singer looks like he just stepped out of Bugsy Malone.

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  2. Well, that has brightened my evening! You set it up nicely.

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  3. The road from Melbourne to Adelaide is similar in character. Just a little smaller. I have driven it a few times, stopping off in places like Nhil, where everything is pretty rough and ready.

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