It took only two minutes and 43 seconds to help dispel Australia’s “cultural cringe”, a sentiment that prevailed deep into the 1960s. The relatively young country suffered from what critic A.A. Phillips saw as a sense of embarrassment that its home-grown culture was considered inferior to that produced elsewhere. Phillips was talking about “high” culture, but the term could well have applied to popular music. The now outcast Rolf Harris, yodeller Frank Ifield and the vanilla-flavoured folk group The Seekers were among the few Antipodeans to grace the overseas charts.
It was The Easybeats who blew that up in 1966. “Friday on My Mind”, a blue-collar anthem about having a blast at the end of a working week, propelled a band on the cusp of failure to one that would define a tough Australian rock sound that still roars loudly today.
The group got together in the Villawood migrant hostel on the outskirts of Sydney when two Dutch teenagers — who took the stage names Harry Vanda and Dick Diamonde — teamed up with Leeds-born singer Stevie Wright and Scot George Young. The latter pair met after the vocalist was involved in a fist fight over a girl.
The Easybeats looked unlikely heroes until they fell under the wing of Ted Albert, a Sydney blueblood businessman. Albert took a risk by backing a homegrown act, but The Easybeats took Australia by storm with raucous Kinks-like hits including “She’s So Fine” and “Sorry”.
Albert paid to bring the band to London but they failed to spark. Shel Talmy, producer of The Who and The Kinks, was hired and was on the cusp of dismissing the band until Vanda and Young played him a nagging little riff that caught his ear and was fleshed out into “Friday on My Mind”.
That riff steps off in a minor key that leaves the listener feeling almost annoyed. Singer Wright adds to the frustration with elongated vowels and fed-up pauses as Monday drags by. By Tuesday, a fiddly harmonic minor guitar figure precedes backing vocals magpied from the French vocal group Swingle Singers, an unlikely but remarkably effective inspiration. An exhilarating chorus kicks in.
The song, as tight as a coiled spring, was an instant hit across Europe and in the US and brought the Australian immigrant sound to an international stage. The cringe had been shrugged off — at least by Australia’s younger generation.
The song echoed across Europe almost immediately. Dutch band Tages produced a limp version in the same year, studded with constipated rhythm guitar-playing. A year later, French band Les Hou-Lops released “Vendredi m’obsède”, a French-language take with all rough edges sanded off. By 1968, even Romanian hippies had Friday on their mind as the band Phoenix moaned about working for the rich man in a communist country.
David Bowie chimed in with arguably the best-known version of the song on 1973’s Pin Ups covers album. He had worked with Talmy earlier in his career and delivered a take that swings wildly from the Anthony Newley-inspired camp of his early career to a glam beat to the blue-eyed soul that was yet to come — all within a couple of bars.
Southend band The Kursaal Flyers landed close to the original spirit of The Easybeats with a hard-working version in 1977 and Bowie’s school friend Peter Frampton produced a serviceable version in the 1980s that reprised the raw studio sound of the 1960s.
The song holds a special place in beer-soaked Australian culture, having been used to promote rugby league and featured on compilations of music to play in your ute. Bruce Springsteen tapped into that sentiment when he used it to kick off a 2014 tour down under with a muscular cover.
You Am I, the current standard bearers of quality Australian rock, played a riotous version in 2005 with Vanda joining on guitar to induct The Easybeats into the ARIA Hall of Fame that captured the rebellious attitude of the original band.
The song’s influence has stretched well beyond its three verses. Vanda and Young became house producers at Albert Productions and helped nurture a stable of Australian acts such as Rose Tattoo and The Angels. The spirit of The Easybeats was most keenly imprinted on the ears of the world via AC/DC — led by George’s younger brothers Malcolm and Angus — whose first six albums were produced by the duo.
“Friday on My Mind” was honorably included in Richard Thompson’s 1,000 Years of Popular Music set (2003) with the guitar virtuoso introducing it not as an Australian song, but one written by a couple of Dutch and Scottish guys.
Thompson's statement was similar to one expressed in a 2017 TV mini-series about The Easybeats, called Friday on My Mind. In the show, a British interviewer asks what makes them an Australian band, given that they were all born in Europe. The actor playing George Young responds: “The music, mate”, delivered with more of a sneer than an embarrassed cringe.
What are your memories of ‘Friday on My Mind’? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: Repertoire; EMI; Disques Mérite; PLG UK Catalog; CBS; A&M
Picture credit: Alamy