# Do you come from a land down under? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 25, 2010, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343 "2010-01-25T09:11:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2010, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/21 "2010-01-28T23:39:41Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Men Without Hats were Canadians weren’t they? Ah well, they’re all colonials… Yeah, they were, but it’s not really a “oh, they’re all colonials” thing with me, merely the similarity of names. Honest! 🙂 > [@](#): > > … Something I learned on this board is that the flute solo in that song is an adaptation of the Kookabarra song, and that Men at Work were unsuccessfully sued over it… Ah, that Kookaburra in the old gum tree? Brings back memories of the “Singing Together” time at primary school. I wonder if it has kept the line about having a “gay” life, > [@jjimm](#): > > … written on the front of their “fried out kombi” is “TANELORN RULES”, which greatly excited me when I first saw the video, having read lots of Michael Moorcock (and thinking it cool at the time). I now have the notion that **jjimm** is reading the thread and singing along with Hawkwind. I’d have found the “kombi” word a lot more confusing than “chunder”, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/22 "2010-01-29T06:56:26Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > I’d have found the “kombi” word a lot more confusing than “chunder”, actually. To tell the truth, I’d never seen the lyrics until I watched the video on YouTube, and I always heard the line as “traveling in a foreign country”. But seeing the video, the context in the imagery and having the lyrics alongside made it immediately obvious what the word meant. True Story: One of the “the devil is everywhere” guys at the church I grew up in proclaimed Men At Work “satanic”, based entirely on the line in this song that says, “Buying bread from a man in Brussels”. Because, obviously, Brussels was the seat of the European Market (or whatever it was called back in the '80s), which was of course going to be the spawning ground of the antichrist and his “mark of the beast”; said mark was going to be required for anybody who wanted to buy or sell, hence the reference to buying bread. From a man in _Brussels_. Perfectly logical, right? Yeah, me neither. I heard the lyrics and thought, “Oh, Brussels rhymes with muscles.” ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/23 "2010-01-29T07:34:17Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > … > > True Story: One of the “the devil is everywhere” guys at the church I grew up in proclaimed Men At Work “satanic”, based entirely on the line in this song that says, “Buying bread from a man in Brussels”. Because, obviously, Brussels was the seat of the European Market (or whatever it was called back in the '80s), which was of course going to be the spawning ground of the antichrist and his “mark of the beast”; said mark was going to be required for anybody who wanted to buy or sell, hence the reference to buying bread. From a man in _Brussels_. Perfectly logical, right? > > Yeah, me neither. I heard the lyrics and thought, “Oh, Brussels rhymes with muscles.” Oh beautiful and all sorts of lovely fun! 😃 Yes, surely we all have nightmares of horrors that might attack us from Belgium. :😕 Yeah, right, keeps me awake at night, it does. I mean, they might attack me with weapons of nice chocolate and some nice enough beer. Bah! I am small and feeble and do not have a gun and am not brave, but I think I could survive that. Hell, I’m willing to risk it: bring it on, Belgium, with your beer, choccy, and lovely friendly way with tourists! So now, this person of the “devil is everywhere” type of brain (using the term in the loosest sense possible) is scared that Belgians are doing the Bad Work of the Evil One? But even before this person got as far as the line about the terror that is Belgium, she/he would have heard the line about “head full of zombie”, but somehow this is not as scary enough to worry about? And did this person get suitably scared at the idea of a vegemite sandwich? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/24 "2010-01-29T07:51:08Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > I now have the notion that **jjimm** is reading the thread and singing along with Hawkwind. Hmm, I did go to see them in Newport in 1990. And I saw Marillion twice, and the Ozric Tentacles. I got better though. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/25 "2010-01-29T07:56:17Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Men Without Hats were Canadians weren’t they? I don’t know if this is supposed to be a joke, but the group was called Men At Work. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/26 "2010-01-29T08:26:02Z")
It is because I, in an earlier post, admitted to the fact that I always tended to get confused between them. Between “Men at Work” and the completely other lot “Men Without Hats”, that is. _Mea culpa._ :smack: (Really, am I the ONLY idiot who has ever had this confusion sometimes? Oh, I suppose so, then. Brain enlargement needed, but only if it does not hurt too much.) ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/27 "2010-01-29T09:09:05Z")
Man, when I read the OP, I said, “Y’know, I’ve always wondered the same thing! I KNOW what chunder means, but the lyrics don’t really make sense if it means barf.” In the lyrics to this specific song, it really means “chunder?” Bleah! Joe ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/28 "2010-01-29T10:39:29Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > Tangential question: it seems to me that the singer doesn’t _sound_ very Australian. Is this an Aussie accent, and just a different one from what many of us foreigners are used to, or what? Colin Hay was born in Ayreshire, Scotland and emigrated in his early teens. Which accounts for the difference from the classic ‘strine you’d be more familiar with e.g. Paul Hogan’s Crocodile Dundee or Steve “Crikey” Irwin (though both are buggin’ on quite a bit). ---
**Author:** ![flano1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f14d63/32.png) [@flano1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flano1)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/29 "2010-01-29T12:24:31Z")
> [@SmellMyWort](#): > > I also seem to remember reading another term for barfing was “calling Earl.” It was either in the Tony Horwitz book One for the Road, or if not, Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country. > > I sure miss Toohey’s Old. enjoying one right now, old son. hic! belch! ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/30 "2010-01-29T13:35:41Z")
Parking a tiger was another euphemism for vomiting. No- real Australian men don’t do it nor do they try to. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343/31 "2010-01-29T22:12:56Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > So now, this person of the “devil is everywhere” type of brain (using the term in the loosest sense possible) is scared that Belgians are doing the Bad Work of the Evil One? But even before this person got as far as the line about the terror that is Belgium, she/he would have heard the line about “head full of zombie”, but somehow this is not as scary enough to worry about? Oh, it wasn’t Belgium per se that was the problem. It’s that they/we all thought “The Rapture” was right around the corner, and that the European Market fulfilled some prophecy in the Book of the Revelation that was said to be a precursor to The Beast and The Antichrist. And there was/is allegedly a supercomputer in Brussels that had been nicknamed “The Beast”, and it was supposed to have some primary function involving the world’s markets and/or population. Of course, at the time there were seven countries that were members of the European Market, and that number is what made it appear to fit into the prophecy. Near as I can tell, the Rapturists swept that one under the rug once the membership grew beyond seven nations. But I should mention that this “the devil is everywhere” guy is the same guy who, when I showed him the lyrics to some Rush songs, specifically “The Necromancer” and “The Fountain of Lamneth”, zeroed in on two words: necromancer and panacea, and then informed me that a necromancer is somebody who has sex with dead bodies, and that a panacea is a sugar pill. Being well-read and quite literate even as a young teenager, I immediately realized he was confusing the aforementioned words with the words “necrophiliac” and “placebo”. And while I could see somewhat reasonable cause for a Christian be concerned over a song about either a necromancer or a necrophiliac, I couldn’t quite fathom any possible objection to either “panacea” or “placebo”. I completely stopped taking this guy seriously after that, as his gaffe made it clear he wasn’t actually engaging his brain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-come-from-a-land-down-under/526343.md?page=1)