Great Southern Land
"Great Southern Land" is a song by Australian rock band Icehouse. It was released on 9 August 1982 as the lead single from their second studio album Primitive Man. It peaked at No. 5 on the Australian Singles Chart, it was later featured in the 1988 Yahoo Serious film Young Einstein, and remains their most popular songs according to listeners of Triple M in 2007.
| "Great Southern Land" | ||||
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Great Southern Land (12" vinyl) - Regular Records | ||||
| Single by Icehouse | ||||
| from the album Primitive Man | ||||
| B-side | "Uniform" | |||
| Released | 9 August 1982 | |||
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| Length | 3:22 (7") 5:14 (LP) | |||
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| Songwriter(s) | Iva Davies | |||
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| Icehouse singles chronology | ||||
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At the 1982 Countdown Music Awards, the song was nominated for Best Australian Single.
It was re-released in the U.S. on Chrysalis Records in 1989 as both a 7" and CD single, to coincide with the U.S. release of the compilation album, Great Southern Land.
On 5 September 2011, "Great Southern Land" re-entered the Australian (ARIA) Singles Chart at No. 66.
There are two versions of the music video. The Australian original version, was filmed at the disused Jones' quarry in Wahroonga in 1982, with solarised clips of the band in daylight and surrounded by camp fires at night. The USA version was made in 1989 for the movie Young Einstein and it has Iva Davies walking around Myall Lakes National Park.
In 1999, Iva Davies was commissioned by Spectak Productions on behalf of the City of Sydney Council to create a musical score to ring in the new Millennium in the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House. Iva took his song “Great Southern Land” and created a new version dubbed “The Ghost of Time”. The performance in the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House, featuring Iva Davies, Guy Pratt, Richard Tognetti, Glenn Krawczyk, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and TaikOz, was seen by millions of people around the world.
In November 2014 the song was selected for inclusion on the Australian National Film & Sound Archive's "Sounds of Australia" list.
The song is also used as the walk out tune for the Australian cricket team for their home matches during the Australian summer.
Qantas added eight 787-9 Dreamliners to its fleet in 2017. The airlines named each Dreamliner from suggestions and votes from the public. The name “Great Southern Land” was chosen for the first aircraft out of 45,000 suggestions from the public.
In January 2018, as part of Triple M's "Ozzest 100", the 'most Australian' songs of all time, "Great Southern Land" was ranked number 4.