Pop legend John Paul Young shares the ups and downs of his career in new JPY memoir

‘Love Is In The Air’ remains one of the most loved Australian songs of all time, and John Paul Young has revealed how it saved his career more than once after his 70s pop superstardom faded.

Exclusive: John Paul Young calls Love Is In The Air his miracle song.

That three minute and 23 seconds soundtrack to happiness for millions of fans has proven to be the golden ticket to save his career and livelihood several times over the past four decades.

In his memoir JPY, Young reveals the struggle to keep his family afloat when his 70s pop superstardom faded and he fell victim to dodgy promoters and was forced into the humbling cabaret circuit.

MORE: Squeak still loves the music

John Paul Young was the reigning King of Pop during the Countdown era. Picture: Supplied.

At the height of the crippling interest rate crisis of the 1980s, the former King Of Pop had to sell his Sydney beachside home and relocated to the more affordable NSW Central Coast with his wife Lynette and two children Amanda and Danny.

He reinvented himself as a radio personality in Newcastle until his music career was resurrected when Baz Luhrmann used Love Is In The Air as the theme for his debut feature film Strictly Ballroom in 1992.

As the I Hate The Music star writes in the book, “I was famous again.”

His early success took him around the world where he was mobbed by fans in South Africa and Germany. Picture: Supplied

You can find more than 500 cover versions of Love Is In The Airbut Young’s remains the most loved and by far the most successful, enjoying yet another life in the streaming era with more than 20 million YouTube views and 14 million streams.

“Love Is In The Air is so strong and I don’t think I ever realised that myself yet here I am still living off that one song and more pertinently, living off the resurrection of that song in 1992,” he said.

“It’s amazing what can happen and it is one of those things I never thought would happen.”

His resurrection has endured ever since and has afforded Young some of the most memorable moments of his career, including performing a nine-minute version of Love Is In The Airat the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony in 2000 and his current Vanda and Young Songbook tour celebrating their enduring classics.

Young and Harry Vanda (pictured) and George Young were a formidable hit machine. Picture: News Corp Australia.

Young, or Squeak as he was been nicknamed by celebrity publicist Patti Mostyn for his high-pitched laugh, was propelled to the top of the charts in Australia in the Countdown era which fuelled the hysteria of young female fans desperate for homegrown pop heroes.

He was famously dragged off stage and had his shirt ripped to shreds in 1975 when he performed his ironic breakthrough hit Yesterday’s Hero on the kingmaking show hosted by his mate Molly Meldrum.

The pair forged a lifelong friendship and entertained millions of Australians with their feisty but generally good-natured sledging.

JPY also tells the story of the night Young had an inebriated and obnoxious Meldrum “arrested” at the celebrations of Countdown’s 100th show in April 1977.

Squeak has hid good mate “arrested” at a Countdown after-party. Picture: News Corp Australia.

At the after-party at the Elsternwick pub in Melbourne, Meldrum had thrown a punch at Daryl Braithwaite and other members of the Countdown team.

“I was in the carpark and there were cops in a divvy van parked outside who saw him jump on (producer) Robbie Weeke’s back and bitch slap him,” Young recalled.

“They went over and with his gift of the mumbling gab, he explained himself and they walked away.

“I was sitting in the car quite enjoying the spectacle and then it became clear to me there were going to let him go and I thought ‘No, no, no, that can’t happen because he had been a pain in the arse all day – he had almost hit me at the bar.

“So I told the cops to take him away, please.”

Celebrity publicist Patti Mostyn gave him the nickname Squeak. Picture: News Corp Australia.

As for his own excesses, while he now restricts himself to a nip of brandy and port “for Dutch courage and to warm the throat” before gigs, Young was the party-starter during the height of his fame and consumed more than his fair share of alcohol and marijuana but never succumbed to the harder drugs prevalent in the rock scene in the 70s and 80s.

His memoir tells of a blowout affair on Shark Island in Sydney Harbour to celebrate the birthday of his best mate and right-hand music man Warren “The Pig” Morgan and included transporting an upright piano by barge.

Young with his wife Lynette in 1972. Picture: Supplied.

It was the party to end all parties on the island with authorities subsequently placing restrictions on its use.

“I frightened myself a couple of times; I tried getting on stage drunk or stoned and it wasn’t a pleasant experience at all,” he said.

“The only thing that has ever been important to me when I took on the mantle of being who I am and performing has always been singing in tune, it’s everything to me. I can sing much better without drugs or alcohol.”

John Paul Young autobiography out this week. Picture: Supplied

JPY: The Autobiography, New Holland Publishers RRP $34.99 available from all good book retailers or online, here.