Bloke's (Men's) Love Songs

Australian love songs, sung by blokes. But not what you’d call soft and soapy. Blokey.

I thought there would be more, but couldn’t settle on any. I pondered How To Make Gravy, but after listening to it again (curse those onions, tissue please), I don’t think it’s a love song. Ditto with his When I First Met Your Ma; he’s singing to his child and my understanding is he’s looking back at a broken relationship with said lady. BTW this is probably based on his real life.

Throw Your Arms Around Me (Hunters & Collectors)

I’d swear I heard lead singer Mark Seymour say that this was written as a love song your average bloke – in a blue singlet – could sing to his better half…but I can’t find any quote like that. The band used to wear said singlets actually.

Not all great songs have to have multiple chords. I think this has 3. Jambalaya has 2 (some versions have a simple variation of one of the chords; a 7th – thus giving 3…but hey)

This is the second, slower, version of Throw that the band released and the one I grew up with:

A number of artists have done covers. Eddie Veder (Pearl Jam), Neil Finn and also these naughty – but very talented – lads. Pity about the audio being so LOUD in the mix, but sit back and enjoy:

I Wish You Were Here (Ed Kuepper)

Not the very similarly named Pink Floyd song, but one by a local lad. He was the guitarist in Australia’s first famous punk band The Saints. I still play I’m Stranded today, decades on. But this song of longing is very different.

Strangely I can’t quite work the chords out on my guitar. Even dropping the song into ‘find the chords’ software seems to confuse it. It may have been recorded fast or slow, hence isn’t in ‘tune’ with a piano. Ed may have used an alternate guitar tuning. Joni Mitchell, Neil Young (& CSNY) and Keith Richards have all used alternate tunings over the years.

I knew of one local guitarist who had two electric guitars; one in normal EADGBE tuning, the other in ‘Keith Tuning’ (Open G: DGDGBD). Apparently if you don’t re-tune the guitar that way, songs like Brown Sugar just won’t sound quite right. If you know music, that tuning means you can play all 6 open strings and a G Major chord rings out ; hence the ironic name for the tuning :-). Put just a one-finger barre on the 2nd fret, and there’s an A Major chord for you. But Keith’s playing is much more nuanced than that.