Way out west where the rain don’t fall. Got a job with the company drilling for oil just to make some change. Living and a working on the land. I quit my job and I left my wife. I headed out west for a brand new life just to get away living and a working on the land. What a change it’s been from working that nine to five. How strange it’s been at last I get the feeling that I’m really alive.
This month’s 45 Revolutions features a fair dinkum workin’ Aussie tune. Written by Kerryn Tolhurst for his band the Dingoes. Way Out West was their debut single released in October 1973 and would set the band on a trek to the United States of America. In 1991 James Reyne and James Blundell resurrected the tune and it ascended the National Charts resting one short of the holy grail. The royalties were hefty and timely for Dingo Brod Smith, who was extremely grateful that Kerryn had credited the band with its composition.
The Dingoes’ original debuted at twenty nine on the Go Set National Charts on Australia Day 1974. It only climbed to twenty six the following week before exiting the next. Locally, in Melbourne, Way Out West had entered the 3XY charts in late November the previous year and peaked at number thirty. It remained in the Top 40 for eight weeks before dropping out in mid January. Why is it so?
Song is in the key of ‘A’ and Brod plays his riff cross in ‘D’. The Reyne/Blundell version was done in ‘G’.
Happy new month EssDawg
Harmonica Riff Raff 