One particular parody that was memorable was that of folk rock band Things Of Stone And Wood’s song Happy Birthday Helen. The band were enjoying success at the time with their debut album The Yearning reaching No. 8 on the ARIA charts and the aforementioned song a radio and live gig favourite.
The Late Show’s clip amended the title and lyrics of Happy Birthday Helen to revolve around the band’s geographical reference in the opening verse – ‘Let’s not forget last night/Yeah, how we drove along the Yarra/How we sang harmonies/To Carole King’ – and that the video features the band in iconic Melbourne vistas like St. Kilda foreshore and trams, hence the song’s title was changed to We’ve Just Run Out Of Melbourne Clichés.
“We got warned by Frente’s manager that we were next after they got a bit of serve,” explains Things Of Stone and Wood lead singer Greg Arnold. Arnold is chatting to Beat ahead of his band’s three upcoming Northcote Social Club shows.
These shows will feature the band’s original lineup of Michael Allen on bass guitar and backing vocals; Greg Arnold on lead vocals and acoustic guitar; Justin Brady on violin, mandolin and harmonica; and Tony Floyd on drums and percussion.
The Late Show’s parody of Frente’s Accidently Kelly Street was quite brutal with the title and chorus changed to Accidently Was Released. Arnold continues, “I was so scared of what was going to happen particularly because it is such a personal song. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch it so ‘the lads’ watched it and I called them after and they said, ‘It wasn’t that bad’ so I watched it and thought it was pretty funny.”
Arnold’s deep personal connection to the song is that it was written for his girlfriend, now wife, Helen Durham. “Originally Happy Birthday Helen was a gift for Helen’s birthday and there was no real intention of the band playing the song; I just showed it to Mikey (Allen) one day and he quite wisely said, ‘We should do that song.’
“What was so perplexing to me as a songwriter is that it was such a personal song to me but it seemed to hit a chord with so many people,” concludes Arnold with a joyful bafflement.
Arnold moves onto how the band decided that the time was right for an anniversary show, 25 years since Things Of Stone and Woods inception. “We played at Port Fairy Folk Festival and after the show we just felt the time was right – the feeling in the band when we were onstage seemed to be reflected in the audience. We really haven’t promoted the shows – they seem to have just hit a chord.”
He now discloses the anatomy of these shows setlist, “We’re mostly revisiting The Yearning, Junk Theatre and the EPs that came out around that time [Happy Birthday Helen, The Hopeful] – it was a real purple patch for the band of material and playing a lot live so it’s a wonderful thing to go back to that time.”
BY DAN WATT
