Track Four: Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport/Billabong

This track was part of our international initiative. According to Wikipedia, this tune was originally written in 1957 by Rolf Harris. In it, the Australian stockman is on his deathbed, and is giving orders to those around him so that when he passes on, his mates around him will take care of everything, the animals, and such.

The tune itself fairly repetitive. Again, Peter is the only with lyrics during the verse; Jacob Broderick is on the upper tenor, Eric is on bass, and Jacob Stewart is on percussion and animal and didgeridoo.

One interesting tidbit about the song is that the lyrics of one verse (the emus going loose) was not in the original version that Harris performed. He had abo's going loose, an epithet for aborigines, who were treated as little better than slaves. So, we decided to set large flightless birds free instead of people.

One reason we liked this song was that there are some lame puns in the lyrics. For example, "Watch me platypus duck, Bill" (pun on duck-billed platypus).

Also, Jacob Stewart was the one who decided to play the didgeridoo when they are mentioned in the song. Note that this is the second time on the CD that a didgeridoo has been imitated (the other being in the introductory track)

Another tidbit about the song is that Harris's version ends the chorus after the verse about tanning the hide. However, we decided to lengthen and speed up our version. We thought that these Australian phrases that we found on a website similar to this one were really cool, and that we should add them into the
song. So, we just repeated the chorus over and over, and in between each chorus, we would say an authentic Aussie phrase. We also switched from "sport" to "mate". Here is a list of our phrases and their translations:

• To the billabong! --to the watering hole
  
• Crickey! --Oh my!
  
• Eat a bikkie! --eat a biscuit
  
• What a drongo! --what a lazy bum!
  
• Till late arvo! --See you later this afternoon
  
• Shrimp on the Barbie! --Shrimp on the barbeque
  
• Better Catch some Zeds! --Better take a nap!
• What a Bludger! --What a lazy bum!
  
• Time to Kark it! --Time to quit!

The astute listener will realize that many animals randomly show up during this song, including a monkey at least 8 times, a Wookie once, and a Yoda once. We decided that since we were in the Australian Outback, we should have animals! So midway through each chorus, Jacob Stewart made an animal noise.

Now at the end of the song, Peter asked a question: "What are we going to tie the kangaroo down with?" Obviously, this was a puzzling question, for it took us at least 10 seconds to come up with an answer. Jacob Broderick finally came through with the classic line: "Rope." We all found this quite funny, and laughed (Jacob Stewart gave the percussion version of a laugh: Ish ish)

After this question-and-answer session, the track should have been over. However, we decided to add what we called not-so-subliminal messages to random tracks. These were random quotes or comments that we whispered into the microphone, just to be silly. This "subliminal" message was a quote from the oft-watched, even more oft-quoted John Cusack film, Better Off Dead. "I Want My Two Dollars!" was a classic quote from the little boy who rode his bike asking for his paper delivery money.