Sounds of Then
1985 single by Gang Gajang
"Sounds of Then (This Is Australia)" is a 1985 song by Australian rock band, GANGgajang, from their self-titled debut album, GANGgajang. "Sounds of Then" was written by front man, Mark "Cal" Callaghan, who provides lead vocals and guitar. He co-produced the album with fellow band member, Graham Bidstrup, and Joe Wissert (Earth, Wind & Fire, Helen Reddy, the J. Geils Band) at Rhinoceros Studios.
It was issued as a single in November 1985 and peaked at No. 35 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart in February 1986. "Sounds of Then" became the band's most popular and recognisable song, and was used as Nine Network's station ID promotion in 1996. The B-Side, "House of Cards", had been recorded live for youth radio station, 2JJJ.
It has been described as, "a defining portrait of the nation."
Composition
Callaghan recalled that it started as a poem in his notebook, reflecting on the time that his family moved from England to Bundaberg in Queensland, a major culture shock for him: "We lived half way between Bundaberg and the ocean, all around was bush scrub and cane fields. And walking up to the top of the street to catch the school bus, one morning you turn around and there's fire. It's one of those songs where if your goal was only to sell records, whatever it took to do it, then the song would have been called 'This is Australia'. But it's not about that.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sounds of Then” as 1985 single by Gang Gajang. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q7564944. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1985, 1986 and 1996.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sounds of Then” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.