Listen to any classic rock station in Australia, continental Europe and much of the rest of the world and you’re likely to hear You’re the Voice. John Farnham’s 1986 track is one of Australia’s most enduring global classics – a pop song that’s both sentimental and forceful in its convictions, and seemingly nonpartisan enough for alt-right groups to try to co-opt it. It hasn’t been as heavily memed as, say, Daryl Braithwaite’s The Horses, another Australian hit of a similar vintage but it’s just as ingrained in the cultural memory among people young and old.
As far as immortal hits go, you could absolutely do worse: aside from being a musically strange, ineffably genius work, it’s also a song with a strange history that seems to act as a proof of concept.
