The twist at the end with the 6.30 news is very true, especially these days. Song still holds up really well nearly 50 years later. The Living in the 70's album was released in 1974 which this was on. Next Skyhooks track has to be "All my friends are getting married", but Million dollar Riff, Ego is not a dirty word or Women in Uniform are also good choices.
Thanks for giving this a spin (yes, I'm that old, I remember spinning records!!). As others have said, the punch line is that the real horrors in this world is on the news. RIP, Shirl, the singer, who died in a helicopter crash. He was a carpenter by trade, and was on a weekly home and garden type show, building stuff and giving tips.
Thanks guys. I was in the audience for this one. It was my first ever in-studio of Countdown episode in late 1974/early 1975. I was 9 years old and Skyhooks were my favourite band of that year. Let's just say that it was safe to be a Skyhooks fan when you're a girl in Melbourne. Being the opposite of a Skyhooks fan meant you were a Sherbet fan, and that could get you hurt. This song is about the 6:30 News and it got to # 1 in Australia. Cheers, Hayley
I bought my older sister a Sherbet Greatest Hits CD for Xmas two years ago as a joke. She was 7 years older than me and obsessed with them in the early 70's. She thought it was pretty funny. They actually had some great songs that still hold up well today but I preferred Skyhooks and a bit later ACDC. Sherbet was for girls.
Don't forget the outdoor scenes of Luna Park! That's where us Sydney Countdown kids got to meet you Melbourne Countdown lot back in the early 80's! I still treasure that time, Hayley.
@@heathcornbeef I tell you what. That first show I participated started a 7 year relationship with the show. I was there almost every Friday from 1975 to 1983 with my little sister Gillian (Live It Up) being my sidekick. I got a lot of memories for life - some I'd be happy to forget if I was to be honest..
@@iankearns774 Sherbet were great! I remember Dad buying an expensive stereo system and playing my copy of ''You've Got The Gun'' to impressive his friends. I have to admit, that song sounded brilliant through that player. I think time will prove that Sherbet were a better band than people thought they were.
Daddy Cool's Ross WIlson produced this and their first couple of albums. Then they kicked Daddy Cool out of the zeitgeist and became the biggest band in Australia in the mid 70's. The singer, Graeme (Shirley) Strachan, went on to host TV shows before he crashed on the north-east slope of Mount Archer in 2001. RIP Shirl The Curl.
In 1974 when this was released we had been watching the Vietnam war in vivid colour on the news. I am now 65 and still remember vividly pictures I saw on TV of that war. Especially a couple where a prisoner was executed with a bullet to the temple on camera on a show called Four Corners. Also the report of the village napalmed by friendly fire and the naked child running down the road with burns. Maybe we should see war uncensored and it may change all few attitudes.
Context is everything when it comes to a band like Skyhooks. Maybe they're not the most sophisticated and complex rock band of that time, but they offered something new, which was desperately needed at the time. As somebody else has put it.. You had to be an Aussie living in the 70's to really understand Skyhooks. We were a subsidiary of England, living in the post Menzies years, excited to have Whitlam as our new leader, and Skyhooks were simply documenting these events through song. We had no idea that our Whitlam was going to be fired by our Queen and the CIA, and it seems interesting that Skyhooks pacified their lyrics not long after the firing of Whitlam. Again, context is everything...
This song from their debut , Living in the 70’s …. Half the album got banned from Radio play at the time, so the fans couldn’t hear them on the radio had to actually go out and purchase the LP to listen to it, the Album sold a truck load of vinyl….. Living in the 70’s became a smash….. and their career was off and running.
love that they think it's about actual horror movies - it was the Vietnam War on the evening news every night with real death in living colour for the first time.
Skyhooks were a great pub act. It wasn’t high art, but they focused on guitar riffs as their main hook source for their songs. They had a good sense of humour, pretty mischievous as you know from their other song you reacted to. Some of their biggest hits are songs I wouldn’t necessarily say are essential listening; my suggestions would be Ego Is Not A Dirty Word, Million Dollar Riff, Jukebox In Siberia, and for a high energy belter Women In Uniform. Their tongue in cheek attitude actually just made me think of another Aussie band called Painters And Dockers (named after a union) with their song Nude School which is again not high art but the song and the video clip are fun and funny.
Funny how you call the hooks a pub rock band . A mate of mine from back was a mad hooks fan .When AC/DC started getting notices he called them your average standard pub band that you could see at your local pub .And they would never be as big as the hooks .I still laugh at him when we catch up some fifty yrs later.
In the 70s us blokes liked Skyhooks and the girls liked Sherbet . Girls could like Skyhooks ,but blokes who liked Sherbet were seen as suspicious or even as Feminine.
Mental As Anything - Spirit Got Lost (1983) Friday night in the video room I enjoyed Skyhooks and their hits, but they were a tad before my time. I think I was just too young to be a fan. I remember one girl on Countdown making threats of suicide if they didn't look at her. After her third exclamation, the Hooks turned to her with their eyes wide open. It made all of us laugh at her and that caused her to cry. She's probably dead now.
I first heard this on the first-ever "New Wave" compilation (Vertigo Records UK 1977). On that LP Skyhooks were rubbing shoulders with the Ramones, Dead Boys, the Damned, Flaimin' Groovies, New York Dolls, Runnaways, Talking Heads, Boomtown Rats, Richard Hell... and, even though Skyhooks didn't qualify as New Wave this song was NOT out-of-place on that album...
I also had that compilation LP, and I felt Skyhooks were a little off the New Wave track. I managed to get two of their albums for cheap at a used record shop in South Kensington and they're not bad. Witty songwriting , packed full of hooks and riffs , good at what they did..
I still have my copy of that New Wave album I'm happy to say, and this is one the best songs on it. Should have been a hit. I assume it was a single as I remember it being an edited version on the New Wave album.@@britishtechnosea9591
Spooky. I was literally watching this same video on the same channel last night. There are still a few great songs for you to check out. Ego Is Not A Dirty Word, Women In Uniform, All My Friends Are Getting Married. They reformed in 1990 and Jukebox In Siberia was their big comeback hit.
These guys were on top of the Australian rockpile heap when I first came to the country in 1976. Their big moment wasn't long lasting, which is a shame, because there were a lot of good songs and great ideas coming out of the band. Greg Macainsh was an interesting and intelligent songwriter.
@@nevillemignot1681 "This Land Is Your Land" can also be considered relevant today. But are you engaging in the works of Woody Guthrie, and digging how applicable it is today? Probably not.
Would have heard this as a little kid on radio but never seen the video clip. Really does highlight what the period looked like then. I think because colour tv was still a relative new thing, groups like Skyhooks went overboard on how to look very colourful for tv. I seen some old clip, maybe on here of AC/DC looking similar. Thankfully they ditched that look soon after and the concentrated on their hard rock sound. I reckon when I was a kid the news on tv was around 6-30 pm so yeah, the horror movie about that was clearly part of this song. Now the news shows can be anytime from 4pm to 7pm. It is horrendous. Thankfully with the internet, the tv is not the only source to watch something.
A bit of a slow burn for me. I remember it being played ad nauseam and still not quite liking the song until years after it was off the charts. I still like the rest of the Living In The 70's album. I think you had to live in Australia in the 70's to really understand Skyhooks.
@@EveJenkins58 - Wellington, New Zealand 🙂 One of the other bands paused their gig after the second song because their bass player needed to pee - which I'd not witnessed before, at any other gig I've ever been to! And I'm in my 50's! 😂
@@mightyV444 Not going to compare groups, but I do wonder what Slade would have done with ''Women In Uniform''. It'd have to be a lot better than what Iron bloody Maiden did with it.
@@SPKdesign1 Nationality has nothing to do with it. We're not here to put other people down over where they are located. We didn't start that shit with you, so please don't start that shit with us.
This song isn't about watching movies. It's simply about watching the news. Unfortunately, it's still relevant.
Exactly
It's specifically about footage of the Vietnam War being shown on TV (on the news). That was a crazy concept back in 1975.
The twist at the end with the 6.30 news is very true, especially these days. Song still holds up really well nearly 50 years later. The Living in the 70's album was released in 1974 which this was on. Next Skyhooks track has to be "All my friends are getting married", but Million dollar Riff, Ego is not a dirty word or Women in Uniform are also good choices.
Thanks for giving this a spin (yes, I'm that old, I remember spinning records!!). As others have said, the punch line is that the real horrors in this world is on the news. RIP, Shirl, the singer, who died in a helicopter crash. He was a carpenter by trade, and was on a weekly home and garden type show, building stuff and giving tips.
And had a kid's show called Shirl's Neighbourhood.
Thanks guys. I was in the audience for this one. It was my first ever in-studio of Countdown episode in late 1974/early 1975. I was 9 years old and Skyhooks were my favourite band of that year. Let's just say that it was safe to be a Skyhooks fan when you're a girl in Melbourne. Being the opposite of a Skyhooks fan meant you were a Sherbet fan, and that could get you hurt. This song is about the 6:30 News and it got to # 1 in Australia.
Cheers,
Hayley
Nice one 👍 those are memories for life and a neat thing to have experienced
I bought my older sister a Sherbet Greatest Hits CD for Xmas two years ago as a joke. She was 7 years older than me and obsessed with them in the early 70's. She thought it was pretty funny. They actually had some great songs that still hold up well today but I preferred Skyhooks and a bit later ACDC. Sherbet was for girls.
Don't forget the outdoor scenes of Luna Park! That's where us Sydney Countdown kids got to meet you Melbourne Countdown lot back in the early 80's! I still treasure that time, Hayley.
@@heathcornbeef I tell you what. That first show I participated started a 7 year relationship with the show. I was there almost every Friday from 1975 to 1983 with my little sister Gillian (Live It Up) being my sidekick. I got a lot of memories for life - some I'd be happy to forget if I was to be honest..
@@iankearns774 Sherbet were great! I remember Dad buying an expensive stereo system and playing my copy of ''You've Got The Gun'' to impressive his friends. I have to admit, that song sounded brilliant through that player. I think time will prove that Sherbet were a better band than people thought they were.
Its so true and still so relevant today, real life is far more scarier than any movie ever could be.
Daddy Cool's Ross WIlson produced this and their first couple of albums. Then they kicked Daddy Cool out of the zeitgeist and became the biggest band in Australia in the mid 70's. The singer, Graeme (Shirley) Strachan, went on to host TV shows before he crashed on the north-east slope of Mount Archer in 2001. RIP Shirl The Curl.
In 1974 when this was released we had been watching the Vietnam war in vivid colour on the news. I am now 65 and still remember vividly pictures I saw on TV of that war. Especially a couple where a prisoner was executed with a bullet to the temple on camera on a show called Four Corners. Also the report of the village napalmed by friendly fire and the naked child running down the road with burns. Maybe we should see war uncensored and it may change all few attitudes.
Context is everything when it comes to a band like Skyhooks. Maybe they're not the most sophisticated and complex rock band of that time, but they offered something new, which was desperately needed at the time. As somebody else has put it.. You had to be an Aussie living in the 70's to really understand Skyhooks. We were a subsidiary of England, living in the post Menzies years, excited to have Whitlam as our new leader, and Skyhooks were simply documenting these events through song. We had no idea that our Whitlam was going to be fired by our Queen and the CIA, and it seems interesting that Skyhooks pacified their lyrics not long after the firing of Whitlam. Again, context is everything...
That was the point of the song, the news is like watching a horror movie, so switch it off and you will be better for it
The 6:30 news in 74. Vietnam and Cambodia. A Horror Movie Right There On Your TV. Thanks I love it. It took me back to a 9 year old.
This song from their debut , Living in the 70’s …. Half the album got banned from Radio play at the time, so the fans couldn’t hear them on the radio had to actually go out and purchase the LP to listen to it, the Album sold a truck load of vinyl….. Living in the 70’s became a smash….. and their career was off and running.
And this was produced by Mondo Rock and Daddy Cool founder Ross Wilson. He produced Skyhooks first three albums .
love that they think it's about actual horror movies - it was the Vietnam War on the evening news every night with real death in living colour for the first time.
Great band of the 80s saw them live back in late 80s ..in Melbourne..
Skyhooks were a great pub act. It wasn’t high art, but they focused on guitar riffs as their main hook source for their songs.
They had a good sense of humour, pretty mischievous as you know from their other song you reacted to.
Some of their biggest hits are songs I wouldn’t necessarily say are essential listening; my suggestions would be Ego Is Not A Dirty Word, Million Dollar Riff, Jukebox In Siberia, and for a high energy belter Women In Uniform.
Their tongue in cheek attitude actually just made me think of another Aussie band called Painters And Dockers (named after a union) with their song Nude School which is again not high art but the song and the video clip are fun and funny.
Funny how you call the hooks a pub rock band . A mate of mine from back was a mad hooks fan .When AC/DC started getting notices he called them your average standard pub band that you could see at your local pub .And they would never be as big as the hooks .I still laugh at him when we catch up some fifty yrs later.
I had a skyhooks t-shirt when i was about 6 or 7. And the intro to this freaked me out.
At the time the news was at 630 pm so the song is about the news
In the 70s us blokes liked Skyhooks and the girls liked Sherbet . Girls could like Skyhooks ,but blokes who liked Sherbet were seen as suspicious or even as Feminine.
This all sounds suspiciously like three euphemisms to me
@@colrhodes377 Spot on .
I’ve been listening to this for decades and I only just noticed what it was talking about
Mental As Anything - Spirit Got Lost (1983) Friday night in the video room
I enjoyed Skyhooks and their hits, but they were a tad before my time. I think I was just too young to be a fan. I remember one girl on Countdown making threats of suicide if they didn't look at her. After her third exclamation, the Hooks turned to her with their eyes wide open. It made all of us laugh at her and that caused her to cry.
She's probably dead now.
Oh, Gillybean! I always can rely on you to put a dry little conclusion at the end of a mildly sad, yet mildly funny story.
@@Robbo766 🐨
ROTF 🤣No better way to end a hectic week but to end it on reading a Gillian comment!
@@rhonda_hart4982 Thank you Rhonda. Life treating you well?
''Spirit Got Lost'' is very much a halloween tune. Very underrated!
This song's called ''Horror Movie'', yet comments on this page read like a script for a Soap Opera
I first heard this on the first-ever "New Wave" compilation (Vertigo Records UK 1977). On that LP Skyhooks were rubbing shoulders with the Ramones, Dead Boys, the Damned, Flaimin' Groovies, New York Dolls, Runnaways, Talking Heads, Boomtown Rats, Richard Hell... and, even though Skyhooks didn't qualify as New Wave this song was NOT out-of-place on that album...
I also had that compilation LP, and I felt Skyhooks were a little off the New Wave track. I managed to get two of their albums for cheap at a used record shop in South Kensington and they're not bad. Witty songwriting , packed full of hooks and riffs , good at what they did..
I still have my copy of that New Wave album I'm happy to say, and this is one the best songs on it. Should have been a hit. I assume it was a single as I remember it being an edited version on the New Wave album.@@britishtechnosea9591
@@ianballantyne6892 It was # 1 single in Australia in 75
That's good to know, and I'm glad it was. Thanks.@@autoberry1
Horror movie . . . it's the 6:30 News!
Spooky. I was literally watching this same video on the same channel last night. There are still a few great songs for you to check out. Ego Is Not A Dirty Word, Women In Uniform, All My Friends Are Getting Married. They reformed in 1990 and Jukebox In Siberia was their big comeback hit.
This is lovely. Red would disagree.
Cant wait for my Robert palmer Mercy mercy me music video request
yes, the 6.30 news was worse than any horror movie. and props to a bunch of aussie blokes wearing makeup and glamming up in the early 70/s
I still like it
These guys were on top of the Australian rockpile heap when I first came to the country in 1976. Their big moment wasn't long lasting, which is a shame, because there were a lot of good songs and great ideas coming out of the band. Greg Macainsh was an interesting and intelligent songwriter.
Except they had a #1 in 1990 with Jukebox in Siberia.
Way before my time. Like Daddy Cool, being before my time didn't mean I could get away from them.
I think it is the ultimate cop out to say it 'was before my time', how is this song not relevent today?
@@nevillemignot1681 "This Land Is Your Land" can also be considered relevant today. But are you engaging in the works of Woody Guthrie, and digging how applicable it is today?
Probably not.
I do admit to quite fully know what you are talking about........@@Sspringgrainn
I liked Skyhooks.. but I was a Sherbet girl.
Don't worry, we won't hold it against you.
Would have heard this as a little kid on radio but never seen the video clip. Really does highlight what the period looked like then. I think because colour tv was still a relative new thing, groups like Skyhooks went overboard on how to look very colourful for tv. I seen some old clip, maybe on here of AC/DC looking similar. Thankfully they ditched that look soon after and the concentrated on their hard rock sound. I reckon when I was a kid the news on tv was around 6-30 pm so yeah, the horror movie about that was clearly part of this song. Now the news shows can be anytime from 4pm to 7pm. It is horrendous. Thankfully with the internet, the tv is not the only source to watch something.
Skyhooks - Love's Not Good Enough
The singer looks like Steve Guttenberg.
A bit of a slow burn for me. I remember it being played ad nauseam and still not quite liking the song until years after it was off the charts. I still like the rest of the Living In The 70's album. I think you had to live in Australia in the 70's to really understand Skyhooks.
Off-topic, but I'd attended a gig night only a couple of nights ago, and one of the bands' name was Slow Burn 😊
@@mightyV444 Good luck to them. 🙂
@@EveJenkins58 - I did like them best, out of the four bands that had played 🙂
@@mightyV444 Where abouts did you see these bands?
@@EveJenkins58 - Wellington, New Zealand 🙂 One of the other bands paused their gig after the second song because their bass player needed to pee - which I'd not witnessed before, at any other gig I've ever been to! And I'm in my 50's! 😂
Shirley gone too soon.
Haha found Yas i can see and hear you now I've found dinner BRAIN'S BRAIN'S YUMMY DELICIOUS BRAIN'S
He sounds like Geddy Lee. Good song though 👌
Rush are one of my favourite bands, but I reckon his voice sounds more pleasant than Geddy's 😅
@@mightyV444 Not going to compare groups, but I do wonder what Slade would have done with ''Women In Uniform''. It'd have to be a lot better than what Iron bloody Maiden did with it.
@VanessaSun - Oh emm gee, yes! 😀 I can totally hear it, too! 😀
@@VanessaSun-ls2kr you would have probably taken them to bed
@@colrhodes377 @VanessaSun-ls2kr you would have probably taken them to bed 😒
The perfect example of completly missing the point...........
lol How about we just do some unassuming Bob Segar songs instead
I wouldn't mind a reaction to Seger's 'Hollywood Nights' ! 😆
We know that one. And a number of Bob Seger hits. And what is wrong with a Bob Seger song once in a while?!
@hanierfamily - React to it anyway! 😄 😉
I'll stick wi the real Sweet, ta.
Touche.. Not very fair either. Skyhooks were their own thing, and they were OUR thing.
And don't be a replacement for your mate Jay. We didn't like that crap from him, and we're not going to put up with it from you.
@@liveitup67 I was possibly a tiny wee bit harsh wi that comment, I should have taken into consideration that they are Australian.
@@liveitup67 Gillian. Please be cool and above it. I'd like to think we can be adults about this.
@@SPKdesign1 Nationality has nothing to do with it. We're not here to put other people down over where they are located. We didn't start that shit with you, so please don't start that shit with us.