YouTube Music Video: "It's A Mistake" by Men At Work(1982)

From the Australian pop-rock group Men At Work's 1982 album "Cargo", courtesy of Jovar89 who posted it to YouTube, comes this video of one of the tunes from that album, "It's A Mistake".

Both the song's and video's central theme is about a nuclear war accidentally starting, with the expected results.

For those Americans and Russians who see this, and wonder "Why the Hell would the Australians be concerned about nuclear war???", I'd like to point out that Australia was, at various points throughout the Cold War, a member of the old SEATO(South-East Asia Treaty Organization)organisation until it dissolved in the mid-1970's, and was also a member of the ANZUS(Australia-New Zealand-US)alliance, which is still, I believe, in effect to-day, although in a moribund state, at least on New Zealand's part.

Australia also contributed troops to the UN forces in Korea during the Korean Conflict, and to the various Allied contingents fighting alongside US and South Vietnamese forces during the Viet-Nam War, and was, and still is, home to a small number of US military communications and surveillance facilities.

So, that country was, at the time this video was released, and still is, as the presence of Australian forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to-day proves, a part of the Western alliance, and, even though a lesser one when compared with the US, Great Britain or France, would have been a target for Soviet nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO and its allies world-wide.

Going from the bits of info presented above, I'd say that there were was good reason for Australians to be concerned about the possibility of nuclear war breaking out, for whatever reasons, as anyone else on the planet during the Cold War had at the time.

By the way, although Men At Work broke up in either 1984, or perhaps as late as '86, I don't know, it reformed in 1997, with two of the original band's members, Colin Hay, the vocalist and writer of most of MAW's songs, and Greg Ham, its drummer and keyboardist, and occasional songwriter for the group, with a new bassist and co-lead guitar, and have been together, as far as I know, ever since.

They've toured throughout a fair portion of the world, especially in Brazil, where they are staggeringly popular(The one album made by MAW's new incarnation, "Brazil", which came out in '98, and a copy of which I've at home, was a live concert album mainly recorded at various concerts they did while touring that country, with one new in-studio recorded song, "The Longest Night", at the album's end), and, as far as I know, remain together to this day. Will have to check on that in future, however.

They've even played Las Vegas a few times in the past several years, and I once saw part of a concert they did at the Fremont Street Experience in down-town Vegas back in either 2001 or 2002(am thinking it was the latter year).

It was the first time I'd ever seen Men At Work live, and I think they acquitted themselves pretty well, even if Colin Hay's voice sounded a little ragged on some of the higher notes in the various songs presented.

But, considering it had been some twenty years since he first recorded and performed those tunes, plus the effects of aging and "Vegas Throat"(a condition in which the dry climate here essentially constricts the vocal chords to one degree or another, especially for singers coming into Las Vegas from moister climes, and a common complaint among singers performing here), and the fact that it's pretty unfair of me to compare Mr. Hay's voice that night to a twenty-year old recording, I'd say that any raggedness in Mr. Hay's voice was a pretty minor complaint compared to what the group delivered, which was a pretty good show.

Be seeing you.