Australian Music from the War Years?
 

I am trying to flesh out a couple of Australian radio stations, and really dont know what to put in there. Short of "Waltzing Matilda" do any of our friends down under have any suggestions on what the popular music of the day would have been?

Thanks

I'll build a list for you but anything English could be added.

Definately should have "Road to Gundaghi" (pronounced Gun-da-guy)

I've come accross this site
http://www.abc.net.au/classic/features/ac4.htm

ABC is basically our version BBC..


Edit--
Our National Library has some info... i'm looking for mp3's but this might help give some names of songs.

http://www.nla.gov.au/digicoll/music.html

Here's a few MP3 files...

Digger (1942) (hehe, I actually posted this over in the SH3 forums last night)

The A.I.F Is Marching (1940)

Swing Along The Road To Victory (1940)

Curl The Mo Uncle Jo (1944) (I like this Foxtrot, quite American in sound)

Our Air Raid Shelter (1942)

We Shall Prevail (1940)

Can't find "We've Got A Big Brother In America" atm, which would be a real good one.

If you don't mind paying a few dollars, the ABC shop has oodles of "Hits of the War Years" kinda stuff.

Thanks guys. This is great.

Interesting site that has the real listings for Army radio stations during 1944-1945

http://www.radioheritage.net/Story69.asp


Streams (New Zealand): http://www.radioheritage.net/RadioTV.asp


You will be able to record them yourself ;) although I can't vouch for the legality of that.

I don't have QuickTime installed, but here one can find recorded speeches of John Curtin (Prime Minister at the time). A few of these, if they can be converted to mp3/ogg, would certainly add to the atmosphere.

http://www.abc.net.au/archives/timeline/1940s.htm

Here is a list of events in the 1940's from ABC archives. A few have real audio files attached. You could convert them to mp3 fairly easy.

As they are freely available I see no problem with putting it in a mod pack once they are in mp3.

This is good stuff! I'm off to visit the USS Silversides this weekend & maybe spend the night aboard he he, so when I get back in town next week I'll start putting some of this together. The non copywritten stuff anyway.

Thanks again. :up:

Cool... Being an Aussie myself and patrolling out of Brissie, it'd be great to listen to some old Aussie stuff.

I'll see what else I can find and make a collection of mp3's. I'm more then happy to help as i'll surely be using your mod.

edit- Links were no good. Thought i'd found audio of our PM at the time with plenty of war speeches.

These songs will be a great addition to the game :up:

A bit OT question, but were these military theme songs actually popular?
People I know who lived through the war remember only the more conventional (love) songs as "hit music" of the period.

The link I added above has the speeches in QuickTime format. Just needs to be converted. ;)

For example, here's the declaration of war speech, with text... http://john.curtin.edu.au/audio/00282.html

Noticed that when I re-read what you'd found. :oops: They'll make great additions as news items if played on the correct dates. The radio mods I have (thanks cpt Cox) certainly add a lot of immersion for me so an Aussie station will be awesome.

Agreed. Hey Reaves, like I said I will be travelling the next 5 or 6 days, so if you want to put this together as a mod feel free. I just want to have a couple of authentic Australian stations on my radio, doesnt matter who does it. :up:

Absolutely! Pity Curtin's 27 Dec 1941 speech "The Task Ahead" isn't on audio record. What a defining point in Australia's relations with both the UK and America.

The artists performing the tunes I linked above were well known and somewhat contemporary in Australia at the time (Jack Lumsdaine and Peter Dawson for example, with Peter also known internationally). I can only guess therefore that the tunes were played on radio, especially something like "Curl The Mo Uncle Jo". I couldn't imagine why they wouldn't have been - they're definately more mainstream orientated than strict military marches. I'd be quite certain that they would have been played more often at the time than traditional Australian standards like "Waltzing Matilda", "Click Go The Shears" etc...

These tunes may not be remembered as "hit music" of the period, but that wouldn't reduce the likelyhood that they were played (for example, can you name the current Billboard #55 song let alone remember it in three years? I can't even name the #2 :rotfl: ). Admittedly though, a bit of Vera Lynn, a bit of Glenn Miller plus some other period British and American pieces are a MUST inclusion, as they define Australian culture of the time as much as the local music does. ;)

Strict military marches would be a different matter, of course. They'd prolly only be played on parade, LOL!

But then, I guess only someone who was there would know for sure.

EDIT: Reaves, dunno if this list of popular music will help you... http://www.music.unimelb.edu.au/about/CSAM/popular.html

Guys, any progress on this?

OMG someone mentioned NZ. Pretty rare in these forums, even our boat roster in-game is pretty crap. I suppose our Cruisers were off in the atlantic, messing up the graff-spee etc... But a couple of our Corvettes sunk a Jap-fleet sub (one of those huge ones) in I think it was the solomons... we even helped in some of the amphibious assaults in the region, but Churchill sent my grandfather and his mates off to the European theatre to replace the losses we took while thrashing the Nazis.

Back on topic, aside from some minor local differences, the music from Aussie and NZ would have been pretty similiar I imagine, with plenty sourced from the UK.

Be great for some down-under content to make it to the mods section.

Just thinking out loud, a question perhaps for one of our Dutch contingent...

Would there have continued to be (assuming there was one to begin with) a Dutch radio station after Japanese occupation of the DEI?

I guess if so it would focus on Japanese events, but music wise, would it have still played popular Dutch tunes?

Just curious...

(Not wanting to hijack this very important thread, but just wanting to sow the seed, if necessary, for someone to go forth and create a Dutch radio station).