Aussie rock legend Ross Wilson reveals the origin of one of our most bizarre musical traditions
AS PUB classic Eagle Rock gets a new lease on life after West Coast’s big win, Nathan Davies sets out to reveal why the song inspires Aussies to drop their pants
WITH the West Coast Eagles claiming their first AFL premiership cup in 12 years last weekend there was only one tune that got more of a workout than the official club song – Daddy Cool’s 1971 hit Eagle Rock.
And whenever Eagle Rock plays, something uniquely Australian happens. Something as Australian as shouting “no way, get f..ked, f..k off” when The Angels are played, or line dancing to Tina Turner’s Nutbush. Grown men drop their pants.
It’s called the Eagle Drop, and it involves blokes – isn’t it always blokes – dancing with their pants around their ankles for the duration of the song.
Daddy Cool frontman and all-round Oz Rock legend Ross Wilson says he first became aware of the strange trend in the 1990s when he happened to spy a court story in a Melbourne newspaper.
“I had just moved into a new house and I was painting one of the rooms so there was newspaper everywhere.” Wilson, 70, says.
“I looked down at one of the pages and there was a story that said, “Soldiers fined for lewd behaviour”. I thought it sounded interesting, so I read on.
“It was datelined Townsville, and it read: Two soldiers were fined for lewd behaviour blah blah blah … In their defence they said to the magistrate, ‘But your Honour, we always do that when they play Eagle Rock!’
“That was the first I’d ever heard of it.”
Wilson says Eagle Rock actually predates Daddy Cool, with Wilson playing the song with the late Ross Hannaford in pre-Daddy prog-rock band Sons of the Vegetal Mother.
“Although when we first played it was with, like, a nine-piece band and three guitars,” he laughs.
“The lyrics were quite different back then too.”
Wilson says the song was written in a deliberate attempt to create a dance craze, something he and Hannaford felt was lacking from modern music at the time.
“Back before the Second World War there were all kinds of dances – the Charleston and the Black Bottom – and there was actually a dance called the Eagle Rock,” he says.
“It’s been referenced in a few songs. Then I saw a picture of people dancing in juke joint and the caption said they were ‘doing the Eagle Rock and cutting the Pigeon Wing’.
And while the song, which was famously quoted by Elton John as the influence for Crocodile Rock, might sound innocent with it fun lyrics and rolling guitar riff, Wilson admits there are some smutty connotations.
“Look, as time went by I realised that anything to do with ‘rock’ is actually about sex,” he says.
“All of those songs – Rock Around the Clock and the like – they’re actually all about rooting!
“Rocking is rooting and dancing is a kind of foreplay.”
So where did the Eagle Drop actually start? Were the first to drop their daks actually, as has been rumoured, members of the Kapunda Football Club?
Not according to Wilson.
“No, I think the guys from that footy club are going to have to have a face-off with the guys from Queensland University, because they insist that they started it,” he says.
“We’ve gone and played for them and they just go nuts!
“We played at Oktoberfest for them and they were dropping their daks and moshing! Then it finished and there was silence and they yelled out PLAY IT AGAIN!”
Wilson says a list of rules in one of the uni’s function rooms actually specifically mentions the Eagle Rock.
“There were all the usual rules – no swearing, that kind of thing,” Wilson says.
“Well, you get to No. 8 and it says: Patrons will not be ejected by security if they drop their pants during the playing of the song Eagle Rock. Then rule No. 9 says: They must pull their pants up when the song is finished.”
Wilson says as well as the University of Queensland and Kapunda Football Club there were plenty of other organisations who claimed to have invented the Eagle Drop, including a Canberra rugby club and a number of military colleges.
“I spoke to a military bloke who reckons he’s been to about eight army weddings where the guys have all dropped their daks and the bride’s parents are like, ‘what the hell is going on?’,” Wilson laughs.
“At the end of the day though I know that it had nothing to do with us. It’s a bit like The Angels chant – something cheeky invented by the Australian public.”
Our strange Aussie rock habits
The Eagle Drop: Participants drop their pants at the start of Eagle Rock, dance in their boxers or jocks, then pull their pants up at the end of the song. That’s it.
No way, get f…: Participants shout, “No way, get f….ed, f… off” in response to chorus of The Angels’ Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again.
“The first time I heard it was when we were playing a show in Mt Isa,” the late Doc Neeson said.
“I thought they were just telling me to f… off. I thought it was a bit strange that they’d waited until the end of the gig to tell us that they hated us.”
The Nutbush line dance: Only in Australian do people dance a version of The Madison to Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits.
The origins are unclear, but many think it may go back to Health Hustles, the mandatory dance fitness classes rolled out in Australian schools in the 1980s.