The Australian’s Australian of the Year: Nominee Jimmy Barnes kept country smiling

Rock icon Jimmy Barnes has been entertaining Australians for more than four decades and didn’t miss a beat in 2020.

Eternal optimism: Jimmy Barnes. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Even in a year when everything stopped, the music never did.

Rock icon Jimmy Barnes has been entertaining Australians for more than four decades and didn’t miss a beat in 2020, keeping the country smiling through the highs and lows of lockdown with his daily online concerts.

Barnes and wife Jane — often joined by daughter Elly-May — kept the masses entertained with regular postings of their trademark home concerts that were as raw, unpolished and energetic as the Cold Chisel vocalist was in his heyday.

The Working Class Man singer ended the year the same way he spent the majority of it — at home with his family in the NSW Southern Highlands.

On New Year’s Eve, dressed in a Scottish kilt — an act of support for homeland Scotland, which had just been plunged back into lockdown — Barnes thanked his fans who had stayed tuned throughout the year, and wished Australians a brighter 2021.

“It’s been a big year and it’s been a tough year for a lot of ­different reasons but one of the things that has saved us every night is singing every night for you guys,” he said, before whipping out the bagpipes to play Auld lang syne.

“I know you guys have appreciated it and we really appreciated your support and helping us get through the year as well — together.

“We’re going to have a great new year, it’s going to be a much bigger, better year, but we’ve got to keep fighting, keep locked-down.”

The singer’s unwavering optimism — posting a video almost every day since the start of the pandemic — has earned him a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year award.

The daily video post has been as much of a staple for locked-down Australians as the daily press conferences were at the height of the pandemic, with his first outing on March 26, when the coronavirus first hit our shores.

“This is a humble attempt to cheer up everybody who is locked up at home together,” he said, perched on a bed next to Jane, who was strumming a guitar.

“Jane doesn’t normally play guitar with me and she’s learnt this song specially.”

Jimmy Barnes with his wife singing daily lockdown songs on Twitter during Covid Picture: Twitter

Just weeks before as Sydney hurtled towards restrictions once again and case numbers soared, he and Jane had a song to answer the occasion, whipping out a cover of Skeeter Davis’s End of the World.

“I know it seems like the end of the world right now if you’re living in NSW and in and around Sydney, and it’s not,” he said.

“All we’ve got to do is wear masks, wash hands, stay home, which is nice — it’s what we’re doing.

“Everybody in Victoria has gotten through this epidemic so far so we can learn from them and do our best in NSW and see what we can do — here’s a song for you while you’re locked-down,” ­Barnes said.

Our readers are encouraged to put in a nomination for The ­Australian’s Australian of the Year.

We encourage our readers to put in a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year, which was first won in 1971 by economist HC “Nugget” Coombs. Prominent Australians can be nominated by filling out the coupon above, or sending an email to [e-mail]. Nominations close on Thursday, January 21.