When I was a kid DJ, in the early 1990s, I used to trawl the ‘releases’ section of the community radio station I broadcast through. I remember this one song I played with a plaintive and haunting chorus: ‘Living out on the street / on only $25 a week / try to make the rough ends meet / you’ve got to keep your fingers crossed.’
I remembered the album cover. It was something like a ‘We Are the World’ type thing. I recalled there was a big group of singers involved and that Deborah Conway was one of the singers. I was also pretty sure the same album included a cover version of ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Damnation’ by AC/DC.
‘Living Out on the Street’ appealed to me because of my innate sense of social justice, even as a kid, and a belief in supporting those in need. I related to the description of hardship too, given my own background, and was taken by the beautiful vocal delivery.
Over the years, as the song came to mind again, I became determined to find it but internet lyric searches never turned up the words. It seemed to have dissipated beyond the annals of collective memory.
My girlfriend is a major Deborah Conway fan, so last year I reached out to Deb and explained it was my girlfriend’s 50th and asked if there was a way I could arrange for her to do a little serenade as a gift. Deb was great and it was just a beautiful thing to make it happen and see the joy and amazement it brought to the woman I love. I did take the chance afterwards to ask Deb about the song I was searching for, but she had no recollection of it, while also noting the 80s were a bit of a haze.
I later stumbled across a reference to a recording by a group calling itself ‘The Rock Party’, who had released a song called ‘Everything to Live For’ in 1986. I thought perhaps this was the song I was after. It had an incredible cast of performers: Neil Finn, Nick Barker, Kate Ceberano, Sherrine Aberathne and Sean Kelly, among others.
A who’s who of Australian performers, as well as international ring-ins like Dire Straits and big-time American producer Joe Wissert. Deborah Conway’s name was on the list of singers too.
It fitted the social justice brief as well. There was a reference to it being recorded to combat youth drug abuse.
I looked for a copy to buy and couldn’t find it anywhere.
As luck would have it, a copy of ‘Everything to Live For’ eventually did turn up online. I was stoked, of course. I was putting in a lot of effort to find this song.
It’s a great song, but it wasn’t THE song.
I looked at the B-side and there was a further mix of the song and another called ‘Get Real’ by the ‘Get Real Rappers’, but it wasn’t ‘Living Out on the Street’. No matter, my strongest lesson from studying journalism was the advice given by my instructors: ‘Ask if there is anyone else you can talk to’.
I chatted with Terry McArthur, songwriter, impresario and producer who, with Deborah White, oversaw the recording of ‘Everything to Live For’ in support of the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (now the National Drug Strategy).
He gave me great insight into who was there and how the recording came together. The particulars of ‘Living Out on the Street’ eluded Terry, though.
One thing did emerge, however, which gave me a lead. Out of my conversation with Terry, I became aware of another 80s project called ‘Big Choir Sings’, which did a recording involving a plethora of Australian performers in 1984, with the intent of celebrating the spirit of punk and challenging a sense of elitism in Australia’s music scene. It set a template for big collaborations and an ‘anything is possible’ attitude.
In looking into it, I found a rare copy for sale. There was ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Damnation’ on the track list, and there were our partners in social cohesion again – Neil Finn, Sean Kelly, Sherrine Aberathne, etc – along with ring-ins from their bands and others we know well, like members of Mental as Anything, Paul Kelly, Peter Blakeley, Jenny Morris and Molly Meldrum.
There was a Polly Hester (not Paul Hester) listed on vocals as well.
In further chats with Deb Conway, she did solve a track list mystery for me as to why Polly Hester did not turn up in any searches I undertook. Turns out it was Deb all along, added under a joke pseudonym Paul gave her while they were dating at the time.
I think a companion to a light-bulb moment going off in your head is a neon sign that flashes the word ‘dummy’ with off-kilter fizzle. For posterity, I recalled I did tape those radio shows I had done as a 15-year-old on 3CCC FM.
After some studious fast forwarding and rewinding, I heard my 15-year-old self doing a preamble to the song and announcing it as ‘Fingers Crossed’ by Noel’s Cowards. There it was. After all the lateral thinking I had put into years of searching for it through the recollections of others, I had it on tape. That made me rueful, if not happy.
And ‘Fingers Crossed / Living Out on the Street’ fitted properly into the group, not just because of its noble-hearted sentiment, but through its personnel and what they shared with the other songs. It was recorded by Phil Judd and Noel Crombie, of Split Enz fame, as ‘Noel’s Cowards’ (a spin-off of their other Split Enz spin-off Schnell Fenster), with its own stars on vocals – Wendy Matthews and Vika Bull.
I got myself a 45 rpm copy of ‘Fingers Crossed’ and had it, and the other songs, lovingly digitised so I could upload them and hopefully share them with the artists involved, to thank them for adding to the soundscape underpinning the motivation for my art and, if they didn’t have a copy, to bring the songs home to all of us, including them.
It closed a circle of curiosity for me. I knew the song now that had stayed with me all these years, but I also now have the music for a whole lot of other songs and projects that are a doorway into the social justice side of Australia’s music scene in the 1980s.
Andrew and Lissa Barnum – who had the 80s hit ‘Boom Box’ with their band Vitabeat – are a good example. Andrew came back to me with delight when I shared a link for ‘Everything to Live For’ (after I saw the pair acknowledged in the liner notes).
Andrew says: “To be honest, one forgets about these moments in time. Your note sent me scurrying to my record collection to find our copy. Yes, we have one. We recorded all our Vitabeat releases at Studio 301 in 1985, hence the invitation for ‘Everything to Live For’ vocals. Our national hit ‘Boom Box’ connected with the same positive messaging at the time. The first line: ‘How can you stand there and say it’s over yet, we have just begun to try.’”
Andrew’s comments speak to me of what the music in this trio of songs is all about, for the artists involved as well as myself.
It is not just the recollections and pride of making such marvellous things happen, but also what it has meant and continues to mean to them, as inspiration for the music they keep making and the lives they have led since, as it has been for me.
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