Matthews based the video (which she only features in half of) around a short film she’d seen in London while listening to a rough mix of The Day You Went Away. I didn’t quite get the video, I thought it was a bit odd, but apparently people really liked it in Australia.” As they say if it gets played, you get paid. It was the first time I’d had a song covered. Wendy and I were supposed to meet in London once but it didn’t happen, but we spoke on the phone. “The first I heard was it was recorded by someone in Australia.
Male heard Matthews’ version when a “hard copy CD” was sent to his house - he’d later be flown to Australia (twice) to write with artists including Tina Arena and Cleopatra Wong. Her ARIAs? “They hold up the shelves in my cactus garden. It’s a very fleeting thing but it’s a very lovely thing at the time.” The ARIA awards were nice, I love the acceptance and the appreciation for what you did. But the people around me at the record company and my management were literally dancing and jumping around because it was at No.2. Matthews says she’s always been about art not chart. This song just took off, I wasn’t able to get together with new songwriters and be a musician. “That was the thing I wanted to be doing, but success at that time meant your ass is really busy. It went on to be the highest selling Australian single of the year, and win the ARIA Song of the Year award.
M2m the day you went away meaning tv#
43, and helped by exposure including airing on TV hit E Street, it swiftly climbed the charts, peaking at No. The song entered the Australian chart at No. UK band Republica with singer Saffron and Johnny Male far right. But I also thought there might be a miracle and there might be other people like me ready for something besides non stop rock.
I remember listening to one of those rock radio stations when we were about to release it and thought ‘What have we done? Why am I letting them put this out as a big hello from me? This is nothing like anything else on the radio’. “I loved it, because the words were so simple and direct. There was nothing testosterone or male based about The Day You Went Away whatsoever. Chrissy Amphlett (of Divinyls) had a very male energy about her. Australia’s always been particularly rock-based and male-based. “It was a risk to release a ballad like that at the time. It just a piano and vocal, I wanted the heartbeat through the whole thing, that was about it as far as the sonics and production went. “It was most terrifying, it was way too simple at the time.
Once Matthews finished the song, she didn’t expect it would be a single. It doesn’t explain a damn thing it just says there he is.” Sometimes I change it to ‘with a xylophone’ or whatever live. “That line culminates the whole story for me. Matthews instantly gravitated to that part of the song. I met some Australian people a few years ago and we were talking about the song and the first thing they said was ‘What’s that bit on the end with the groceries and sleeping bags about?’ “So it’s about people travelling around Europe. “That part comes from me being at college and at the time people were going away on gap years, backpacking around the world,” he says. Male was shocked Matthews kept that finale in her version. Male had actually written the song in the late ‘80s during his university days in Manchester, first playing it live with his indie rock band Metro Trinity before recording it with Soul Family Sensation. Soul Family Sensation - Johnny Male, Guy Batson, Pete Z and singer Jhelisa - scored a minor hit with the song I Don’t Even Know If I Should Call You Babyand recorded The Day You Went Away on their 1991 album New Wave - it was released as a single in the UK in 1992 but did not chart. She shared a publisher, Mushroom’s Jackie Dennis, with the UK act. Matthews soon scored a solo deal and her 1990 debut Emigre was home to the hits Token Angels and Let’s Kiss (Like Angels Do).įor the follow-up album, Lily, Matthews was sent a song called The Day You Went Away which had been recorded by British electronic act Soul Family Sensation. By 1988 her soundtrack album with Kate Ceberano, You’ve Always Got the Blues, was a Top 5 hit and the next year sang I Don’t Wanna Be With Nobody But You with Absent Friends. She stayed in Sydney and sang with Jimmy Barnes, Models, Tim Finn and Richard Clapton. Pic: suppliedīorn in Canada, Wendy Matthews found herself in Australia in 1982 working as a backing vocalist for Glenn Shorrock. Wendy Matthews initially heard a jungle remix of the original version of The Day You Went Away.