The biggest question I had going into director Poppy Stockell’s documentary about the beloved Australian singer John Farnham is: how many times will it deploy that song? You know, the one reminding us that we’re all someone’s daughter, we’re all someone’s son. The song that arrived in 1986 and became seared on to the national psyche, to be played and replayed ad infinitum, and may God curse the swinish face of any so-called ’Strayan who doesn’t like it.
Will You’re the Voice be played once? Twice? Will it be reserved for the last act? How long can we look at each other keep watching a Farnesy doco without hearing this amazingly catchy tune about standing up to injustice? The answer is: about halfway through the runtime. But even then we hear the song in pieces, as the story around it is recounted.
