Tina Arena’s hit song Chains joins Sounds of Australia collection
Tina Arena’s signature song has been named as one of 10 new additions to Sounds of Australia, a collection of nationally significant audio recordings.
In the lead-up to the creation of what would become one of her signature songs, Tina Arena had been pondering the frustration of how it felt to be shackled to her past deeds, having grown up as a child star.
What emerged was a song titled Chains: dark, bluesy and soulful, its patient arrangement featured a major melodic change that kicked the track into high gear at the halfway mark.
On Wednesday, this four-minute earworm – the lead single from Arena’s multi-platinum accredited third solo album, 1994’s Don’t Ask – was named as one of 10 new additions to Sounds of Australia, a collection of significant audio recordings established by the National Film and Sound Archive in 2007.
“It’s an extraordinary honour to have something like that acknowledged and archived, as part of the patrimony,” Arena, 57, told The Australian on Tuesday. “I’m absolutely humbled by it.”
Co-written with Pam Reswick and Steve Werfel, Chains joins a handful of songs from the 1990s to feature in the NFSA’s Sounds of Australia collection, including Treaty by Yothu Yindi (1991), Tomorrow by Silverchair (1994), Island Home by Christine Anu (1995) and These Days by Powderfinger (1998).
When told of these songs, Arena replied with a laugh, “I’m in good company. It’s extraordinary, because those sonic pieces of work become a part of the landscape of the country.”
Chains features regularly in Arena’s live set, often as a set closer, which she most recently performed at the Sydney Opera House forecourt on Monday night to conclude a run of outdoor concerts.
“I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to sing – and still enjoy singing – a really strong piece of work,” she said. “The fact that it still does something to me, singing it 30 years later, is perhaps a testament to its musicality and the richness of the text.”
Arena will next sing it, and plenty of her other hits from across the decades, at an encore 30th anniversary tour for Don’t Ask; her 12-date run through capital cities and regional centres will begin in Perth on April 27 and end in Adelaide on May 30.
Also joining Chains in the Sounds of Australia collection on Wednesday were recordings such as the Doctor Who theme song – composed in 1963 by Australian composer Ron Grainer – as well as the Victoria Bitter beer advertisement voiced by John Meillon in 1968, and the last call of the Christmas Island Pipistrelle microbat in 2009, which has since been declared extinct.
The 2024 Sounds of Australia, in chronological order, are:
1. Women’s status in the United Nations Charter: an address to the first meeting of the Women’s International Radio League, Jessie Street – 1945
2. Speaking clock, Gordon Gow (Postmaster General’s Department) – 1954
3. Doctor Who theme music, Ron Grainer (composer), Delia Derbyshire (musician) – 1963
4. Victoria Bitter ad, John Meillon (voice), George Patterson (agency), for Carlton & United Breweries – 1968
5. Jimmie Barker Collections, Jimmie Barker – 1972
6. The earliest 2EA (now SBS Audio) broadcast recordings in language – 1975
7. Kickin’ to the Undersound, Sound Unlimited – 1992
8. Chains, Tina Arena – 1994
9. Last call of the Christmas Island Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi) – 2009
10. Nova Peris’ inaugural speech to Australian parliament – 2013
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