Legal men at work to defend 'Down Under'

SITTING in a courtroom in Sydney, Colin Hay's jaw was anything but slack.

SITTING in a courtroom in Sydney, Colin Hay's jaw was anything but slack.

The Men at Work frontman had much to say on the issue of whether the flute riff from his anthemic pop song Down Under had ripped off the melody of the children's classic Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.

AUDIO: Men At Work/Kookaburra comparison

And in what must surely be a rare event for a court accustomed to dealing with dry commercial disputes, Hay even got his guitar out to regale the court with an acoustic version of his classic Australian hit.

During a four-hour stint in the witness box at the Federal Court yesterday, Hay conceded that the melody contained in the second bar of Kookaburra was identical to the melody in the fourth bar of Down Under's flute riff introduction. It also emerged that Hay had sung the words to Kookaburra during the flute riff when he played Down Under live.

But Hay denied he was aware of the Kookaburra reference contained in Down Under at the time the song was written, and said he only learned of the connection between the two songs earlier this decade when bandmate Greg Ham, former flautist in Men at Work, informed him.

"I never actually gave it a thought to what (Ham) was playing as far as the melody of the flute goes," he said.

"I never actually thought to myself he was playing Kookaburra -- ever, during that time."

Larrikin Music Publishing, which owns the copyright to Kookaburra, is suing EMI Songs Australia and musicians Hay and Ron Strykert, claiming it is owed a slice of the royalties and proceeds of commercial deals that flow from Down Under.

The case before judge Peter Jacobson continues.