In February 2010, a Federal Court judge in Sydney found that the flute riff from "Down Under" had been plagiarised from the Australian song "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree", written in 1932 by Marion Sinclair. The Federal Court determined that the copyright was still current (Sinclair died in 1988) and had been assigned to Larrikin Music. The judge found that "a substantial amount of the original song" had been reproduced in "Down Under". Larrikin Music had suggested 60% of the royalties would be appropriate compensation, but the court decreed they shall receive only 5%, and only on mechanical rights for the song since 2002, and on future profits.
By early 1981, Australian new wave group Men at Work consisted of Greg Ham on flute, saxophone, keyboards and vocals; Colin Hay on vocals and guitar; John Rees on bass guitar; Jerry Speiser on drums and backing vocals; and Ron Strykert on lead guitar and vocals.[3][4][5] Hay was the group's main songwriter both on his own, with Strykert, or with other bandmates.[3][4] The group signed with the Australian branch of Columbia Records, which issued their second single, "Who Can It Be Now?", in June that year.[3][4] As record producer they used United States-born Peter McIan (Franne Golde, Serious Young Insects).[3][4][5] The track was one written by Hay alone,[6] and, in August, it peaked at No. 2 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart.[7][8]
The group had already returned to the studio to continue working with McIan, who produced their debut album, Business as Usual, which included the earlier single.[3][4][5] The second single from the album, "Down Under", was released in November and was a reworked version of the B-side to their debut single, "Keypunch Operator", from the previous year.[3] "Down Under" was co-written by Hay and Strykert,[9] and became the group's first number-one hit in December – which stayed at the top for six weeks.[7][8] The album was released on 9 November 1981, it entered the top 50 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in December peaking at No. 1 for nine weeks and appearing in the top 50 for 118 weeks.[7][10]
The non-album B-side, the jam-oriented instrumental "Anyone for Tennis", was omitted from the 2003 remaster of Business as Usual (which contained both the other non-album B-sides from this era). It appears only on the B-side to "Who Can it Be Now?".
Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane described Business as Usual: "Aside from the strength of the music, part of the [its] appeal was its economy. The production sound was low-key, but clean and uncluttered. Indeed, the songs stood by themselves with little embellishment save for a bright, melodic, singalong quality".[3] Gerry Raffaele for The Canberra Times felt "[it] generally stays at a high level, tight and jerky, although I still favour the tracks which have appeared as singles ... There is a delicacy about this music – and that is not a thing you can say about too many rock groups".[14]
Credits adapted from the liner notes of the 2003 remaster of Business as Usual.
- Colin Hay – guitar (all tracks), lead vocals (tracks 1–4, 6–13)
- Greg Ham – flute, keyboards, saxophone, "fiddly things" (attributed in the liner notes) (all tracks), background vocals (tracks 1–4, 6–10, 12–13), lead vocals (tracks 5, 11)
- Ron Strykert – guitar, background vocals (all tracks)
- John Rees – bass, background vocals
- Jerry Speiser – drums, background vocals
- Peter McIan – production, engineering
- Jim Barbour – engineering
- Paul Ray – additional engineering
- John Dickson – front cover illustration
[11]
[13]
