Australia finally has its own songbook – and these are the first 10 tunes

This story contains the names and images of Indigenous people who have died.

A song about a suicidal swagman and a classic pub-rock anthem are among those to be immortalised in Australia’s first living body of music, the inaugural national songbook.

But the fact that some big names are not on the list – Jimmy Barnes, AC/DC, John Farnham, Cold Chisel and Kylie Minogue – may spark more interest than the first 10 tunes included.

Inspired by the great American songbook – a canon of the most influential and popular songs and jazz standards from the US early 20th century, from Broadway to Hollywood – Australia’s inductees represent more than a century of storytelling, creativity and cultural expression.

A spectrum of mostly political anthems, the new Australian list was selected by an expert 10-person panel and established by the APRA AMCOS (the Australasian Performing Right Association and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society) and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

APRA AMCOS chief executive Dean Ormston said the first 10 songs to be included in the songbook were chosen for their cultural impact.

“No 10 songs could ever tell the whole story of Australia, but together these inaugural inductees help us understand, as a nation, where we’ve come from, who we are and the values we’ve carried through generations,” he said.

NFSAA chief curator Meagan Loader said the songbook reflected “the remarkable breadth of Australian songwriting and composition, from songs of protest, belonging and identity to works that have become woven into our national story and our DNA”.

To be included, a song must have been written or co-written by an Australian APRA member, had a considerable impact on the nation’s culture and been released at least 10 years before.

The European Union also established its own songbook in 2015, when each member country allowed its citizens to elect six songs to represent the nation. More than 87,000 citizens chose 164 songs across 27 countries.

In no particular order, here are the first 10 songs in Australia’s songbook:

Beds Are Burning, Midnight Oil (1987)

A protest song for Aboriginal land rights and ahead of the 1988 bicentenary, Midnight Oil’s (Peter Garrett, Rob Hirst and Jim Moginie) Beds Are Burning was crafted after the band toured central Australia, where the members learnt about and encountered Aboriginal peoples’ experience of displacement and inequality. It became their biggest international hit.

“We were in a timeless land occupied by people for millennia,” Garrett said. “With hardly any idea of what had come before us.” Details from that visit – such as Holden wrecks, ancient bloodwood trees and local names Kintore and Yuendumu – are woven into the song against a haunting ticking backdrop.

Down City Streets, Ruby Hunter (1990)

Written by the late Ruby Hunter, the first Aboriginal woman to sign with a major record label and release a solo rock album (1994’s Thoughts Within), Down City Streets paints a story of life as a street kid after being stripped from their family.

As a member of the Stolen Generations, Hunter wrote the song to share her experience of displacement. Her husband, Archie Roach, recorded the song initially for his album Charcoal Lane (1990) before Hunter recorded her version years later.

Earth Cry, Peter Sculthorpe (1990)

Tired of relying on Eurocentric conventions to narrate Australia’s history and landscapes, Sculthorpe, commissioned by the ABC in 1986, blended European and First Nations traditions, including the didgeridoo, to create Earth Cry – a distinctly Australian sound.

Friday on My Mind, The Easybeats (1966)

Recorded in the height of Beatlemania, Friday on My Mind captures the restless energy of a generation hungry for romance and escape, quickly becoming what’s considered Australia’s first rock song to become a global hit.

I Am Woman, Helen Reddy and Ray Burton (1971)

An Australian feminist icon, Helen Reddy struggled to find songs that reflected her role in a world where women were campaigning for equal pay. With Ray Burton, she wrote I Am Woman, a defiant anthem of the women’s liberation movement.

My Island Home, Neil Murray (1987) and Christine Anu (1995)

While travelling away from bandmate George Burarrwanga’s island home of Galiwin’ku, the Warumpi Band’s Neil Murray was inspired to write the warm melody that later was repopularised by Christine Anu in 1995.

When Anu performed the song at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, it reached an enormous audience of millions across Australia, and many more internationally.

My People, The Presets (2007)

The only song of the 21st century to make the list is Byron Bay electro-pop duo Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes’ energising hit My People – a protest anthem against Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers.

The Boys soundtrack, The Necks (1998)

Written by The Necks’ Chris Abrahams, Tony Buck and Lloyd Swanton, the unsettling score for The Boys, a psychological film about Sydney’s crime underbelly, has become a thriller mainstay.

Treaty (1991)

In 1988 at Barunga in the Northern Territory, Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised a treaty with First Nations Australians. When that promise went unfulfilled for three years, Yothu Yindi frontman Dr M. Yunupingu co-wrote Treaty with Paul Kelly and Peter Garrett around a campfire to remind the nation of that fact – in an electronic mash-up with First Nations instruments.

Decades later, contemporary acts such as East Journey continue to perform the anthem, keeping the land rights alive movement despite a 2023 referendum ruling out an enshrined First Nations voice.

Waltzing Matilda, Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson (1927)

One of Australia’s most famous songs written by an equally renowned poet, detailing the story of a swagman at large who drowns himself to avoid capture.

One of first songs any Australian learns and constantly floated as the next best national anthem, Paterson’s poem looms as large in Australian folklore as Ned Kelly.