Men At Work legend receives songwriters’ highest honour as Down Under goes viral again

Men At Work frontman Colin Hay is forging ahead with his 35-year solo career, as Down Under wins a new generation of fans with reinventions.

It has been 40 years since Down Under changed Colin Hay’s life.

As the Men at Work pop classic enjoys another spike in popularity thanks to the reinventions of electronic chart star Luude and Yolngu surf rockers King Stingray, Hay is currently touring to audiences in the US who have stayed the course over his 15 solo records.

But he is heading home this month to be honoured for his songwriting genius at the annual APRA Music Awards.

Hay is one of the recipients of the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music, the songwriters’ Hall of Fame. The other honoree is trailblazing promoter Colleen Ironside, who died suddenly last year.

Hay is being honoured at the APRA Music Awards on April 27. Picture: Arsineh Houspian.

The former Men at Work frontman said the renewed love for the band who put Australian pop music back on the top of the charts worldwide in 1983 had also fuelled a greater appreciation for the quality of their songs.

“There was a lot of depth in the music, and the lyrics too, that I think got missed,” he said.

“We were never really the darlings of the rock press at the time, and there was a lot of people that really got annoyed by our success and tended to try to sweep what we achieved under the carpet, pretend that it wasn’t really that important. But it really was important.”

Colin Hay (second from left) with 'Men at Work.

Down Under is the first legacy song to join APRA’s Billions List. Luude’s remix, featuring a new vocal recording by Hay, helped propel the unofficial national anthem into the streaming stratosphere and back into the top 10 in Australia and the UK.

“It’s a beautiful thing to happen 40 years after it was written,” Hay said.

“You couldn’t predict what happened in a million years, that Luude did this version of it, it started to get traction with people watching this video of bikini-clad girls doing a dance to it on TikTok, and then all of a sudden it starts to get into the charts in the UK and take off in different parts of the world.”

Hay, who also tours with Ringo Starr’s All-Star Band, found himself by proxy in Triple J’s Hottest 100 with Colin, the song Lime Cordiale titled in tribute to him.

“They said they wrote it because it was inspired by one of your songs, but couldn’t remember what the song was,” he said.

“I asked them what they were going to call it and they said Colin. I was ‘Come on, don’t be ridiculous. You can’t call a song Colin.”

Harry Styles wins the Most Performed International Work with As It Was. Picture: Supplied

APRA has also announced Harry Styles’ global smash As It Was is the Most Performed International Work for the year, adding another trophy to his heaving awards cabinet.

The other Ted Albert recipient is Ironside, revered as an industry pioneer who built her own touring agency in the male-dominated field in the 1980s.

Ironside then opened up touring in Asia for international superstars including Elton John, Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Sting and Bob Dylan.

The 2023 APRA Music Awards will be held at ICC Sydney on April 27.

Originally published as Men At Work legend receives songwriters’ highest honour as Down Under goes viral again