The Real Thing — and the Australian Open — turn 50
It’ll be a double celebration when Russell Morris performs at the Australian Open tonight — his song The Real Thing and the actual sporting event both turn 50 this year. Here’s the story of the classic Australian song, produced by Molly Meldrum
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RUSSELL Morris will perform his hit The Real Thing at the Australian Open tonight — to mark his iconic song and the iconic sporting event both turning 50 this year.
“It’s nice to have people still talking about your song after 50 years,” Morris said. “You’d not wish it any other way if you’re a musician.”
The song, which spent three weeks at No.1 in May 1969, was written by Johnny Young and produced by Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum.
Meldrum, who was using psychedelic classics I Am the Walrus by the Beatles and Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan as inspirations, spent three months and over $10,000 making the single, which ran for over six minutes.
“Songs were three minutes at that time,” Meldrum says. “But the band were really getting into it so I told them to keep playing. The only reason they stopped was because the drummer was so exhausted he nearly collapsed. Suddenly we had a six and a half minute song. But I thought we could do something with it.”
Meldrum added many layers of effects (including himself imitating Winston Churchill) and the trademark ‘ooh ma ma mow’ vocal hook which came from him imitating a riff intended to be performed by a guitarist who had yet to arrive.
“The song itself was recorded quickly, just a few hours, the rest of the three months was Ian remixing it over and over and over,” Morris said. “He was never happy with it. He was just relentless. But we knew we were making something special. We weren’t sure how people would receive it.”
Record label EMI — who chased Meldrum out of the studio at one point trying to retrieve the tapes — weren’t so keen on the song.
“They hated it,” Morris said. “They thought it was the worst thing they ever heard. They weren’t even going to release it. We had to go to radio programmers and get them to sign something saying they’d play it and we gave that to EMI before they’d put the record out.”
The song quickly shot to No.1 and continues to be discovered by new generations. It has been added to the National Film and Sound Archive and covered by everyone from Kylie Minogue to Midnight Oil.
“Fifty years on people still love it,” Meldrum says. “It still sounds like a current track.”
Morris is quick to point out Meldrum is humble about his groundbreaking production.
“As with most of the stuff he worked on, he’s a very underrated producer. People underestimate him, he’s a super intelligent man. He’s very switched on, he had his finger on the pulse with most things. The Real Thing would never have been anything like how it turned out without Molly. It would have been a totally different song.”
Meldrum is particularly proud Morris will perform the song in front of Rod Laver — at Rod Laver Arena.
“My parents and family were mad tennis fans and idolised Rod Laver. When I met Rod Laver for the first time I was like a mad fan asking him about all these matches. The only person I’ve ever been like that to was when I had a party at my house in the 80s for Dire Straits and Bob Dylan arrived with Lauren Bacall. Everyone was fussing over Bob Dylan and I just wanted to ask Lauren Bacall what Humphrey Bogart was like. The truth of it all is I’m just a groupie.”
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