I see it as a commentary on the duality of existence; the yin and the yang of life. Every extreme carries the seed of its opposite.
I wholeheartedly third this!
Far East? I thought Brussels was in Belgium. Is Bombay in the far East too? (Maybe he was on the same Hippie Trail)
[Verse 2]
Buyin’ bread from a man in Brussels
He was six-foot-four and full of muscle
I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”
He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich
And he said
[Chorus]
“I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover”, yeah
[Verse 3]
Lyin’ in a den in Bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, “Are you trying to tempt me?
Because I come from the land of plenty”
And he said
Oh, do you come from a land down under?" Oh yeah, yeah
“Where women glow and men plunder
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? Oh
You better run, you better take cover”
Chunder: To puke
Vegemite: A yeast based spread that sometimes works on toast & butter. Sometimes compared to British Marmite, which is some kind of sticky goo.
Down Under: Australia. Almost nobody calls it that. And they picked up Shrimp on the Barbie (Barbecue) as Paul Hogan somehow sold them on that and Foster’s being “Australian for beer mate”
Flora & Faunae: Fruits, vegetables, frogs. The Australian Customs absolutely take imports of outside critters or plants seriouslty. Do not test them.
Tasmanian Devils: They are nasty critters. But only in Tasmania and zoos.
Kangaroos: They will generally scamper away from you. Mess with a Joey (a male) and he might kill you.
I’m pretty sure Brussels was a stop on the London-to-Bombay route.
Via Peking? Am I being whooshed?
Have you played knifey-spooney before?
I don’t recall Men At Work mentioning Peking.
I suppose they could’ve been hankering for a succulent Chinese meal.
Now called Beijing and still in the Far East and Colin Hay found a fellow Aussie in Brussels and Bombay, and as Australia was a culinary wasteland till the Thai’s and Chinese showed up, they are aware of their global position.
Are we doing a comic bit here? I’ve no problem you being the straight man (Bud Abbot) and me being Lou Costello. “Who’s on First?”
Well, that last bit I threw in was a reference to a famous video of a petty gangster from Brisbane being arrested after being mistaken for a credit card fraudster.
He’s definitely doing a comic bit. In my time in Melbourne I never had a run in with the cops, yet here they are treating him with kid’s gloves and a lot of what he’s saying is rather funny. Australian’s like jokes.
ETA: That is a definite British accent
I just flew into Brisbane from Brussels via Beijing, and boy are my arms tired!
I reckon you’ve not played knifey-spoony before
Hah! Why do you think I @'d you?
It can be argued that the narrator is actually God.
“The argument goes something like this: ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’
“ But,’ says Man, ‘the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’ “
‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
“ ‘Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
True but I’d argue the median is pretty facile and not particularly deep. Not complaining, though, my life was never ever changed by a banging philosophy thesis. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus has gotten me through zero bad break ups (in fairness I’ve never read that or any other great work of philosophy maybe my bad break ups would have gone better if I’d tried 
)
I’d agree with other posters though that Sympathy for the Devil is an outlier as it does give a clever nuanced philosophical take on the nature of evil, and is a frekkin awesome tune.
According to an interview he did years later, he was hoping he’d be able to convince the cops he was insane and put him in a mental institution, because he knew from prior experience that those are easier to break out of. (He wound up being let go the next day after it turned out they had the wrong guy.)
Don’t even try to read Wittgenstein. I foolishly bought one his books after having read a biography of him which fascinated me, but in his own words (or rather, words mixed with symbols) he’s incomprehensible. Or maybe I’m just too dumb, so I prefer the philosophy of Mick Jagger.
I wouldn’t have thought that anybody would remember that ancient thread.
As I was reading this Spiritualized Floating in Space came on my playlist, which has gotten me through a bad break up or two, and more frequent periods of having no girlfriend, and having some serious feelings about it. Good luck matching that Wittgenstein
“Forcibly detain him”
The British absolutely think they are superior to the Australians. “Australian Meme, me arse”. Try that shit in NYC and see how quick you’'re cuffed and gently placed into the backseat of a radio car.
He was not really resisting and was sounding too funny and maybe the police figured they were being played. You want to be crazy, do DeNiro in Taxi Driver, “I say, officer art thee talking to me? I do not see anyone else here so you must be talking to me!”; then headbutt the glass window on the back window, maybe till you bleed. Now your brilliant plan is in motion. Get booked, say even more crazy things and next you better be Houdini as you’re in a strait-jacket in a padded cell, Maybe they’ll all have a good laugh and let you go off and meme at their expense. Or, maybe they’ll treat you as they would in NYC, “Journalist, eh? A funny joke? What are you a Brit? The judge has just sent his wig off to the cleaners, so it’ll be Monday or maybe Tuesday. In a couple hours you will get today’s succulent menu: Chipped beef, potatoes and carrots. And if there’s anything else we can do for you, Sir Reason, just ring the little bell. Oh, rats, we’re out of bells.So just yell really loud, that’lll work. Enjoy!” door slams
Love that album. I’m just listening to the Buzzcocks’ “Singles Going Steady”, and they also have plain philosophies I can comprehend.
I’d like to see that argument. If I had to defend the proposition I’d say that inventing Satan was a ludicrous tipetoeing around the reality that if God - we’re talking the Christian God here - created the heavens and earth, then he created evil as well and is just as much responsible for everything wrong in the world as well as everything that is right. No fallen angel nonsense gets around that. So “Satan” is “really” God just as much as Jesus “really” is.
Yes, the Sex Pistols were a real band. Do you think their crap was written by professional songwriters? And then what, the company picked musicians that couldn’t play?
From last year:
I think you have it 180 degrees out. the song is lamenting that, wherever the singer goes, no matter how remote or distant, he can’t help but keep running into Australians.