From First Nations songlines and protest music to pop anthems, jingles and digital disruption, a new anthology examines how Australian songwriting has reflected and influenced the country across a century.
by Paul Cashmere
Australian songwriting is being placed under the microscope for its role in shaping the country’s identity, culture and history in 100 Years of Australian Songwriting, a new anthology bringing together 20 essays that look beyond familiar classics to examine what Australia’s songs reveal about the nation.
Published as part of the centenary reflections surrounding the Australasian Performing Right Association, the book takes a deliberately broad view of the Australian songbook. Rather than attempting to establish a definitive list of the country’s greatest songs, the collection asks why particular songs have endured, what they say about their time and how songwriting has helped Australians understand themselves.
The anthology spans a century of music and explores themes including national identity, protest and activism, live performance, feminism, digital disruption and the international reach of Australian music.
Among the songs examined are well-known cultural markers such as ‘I Am Woman’ and ‘Up There Cazaly’, alongside less obvious material including forgotten soundtracks and advertising jingles. The approach recognises that Australia’s musical history has not been written solely through records and chart hits. Songs embedded in sporting culture, public life, protest movements and everyday commercial life have also become part of the country’s collective memory.
The book features contributions from music journalists, songwriters, First Nations knowledge holders, academics, artists and cultural commentators. Contributors include music broadcaster and journalist Richard Kingsmill, The Wiggles’ Anthony Field and songwriter Fanny Lamsden.
That range of perspectives is central to the book’s purpose. Australian songwriting has developed across very different cultural traditions and communities, and the anthology considers those differences rather than presenting a single version of the Australian experience.
The collection also places First Nations songlines alongside modern popular music, creating a longer historical frame for considering what songwriting means in Australia. That perspective broadens the conversation beyond the conventional chronology of Australian popular music and acknowledges traditions that predate the recording industry by thousands of years.
The book’s foreword comes from singer and songwriter Jenny Morris MNZM OAM, who is also Chair of APRA. Morris describes the collection as a celebration of both the songs that have accompanied Australians’ lives and the songwriters responsible for giving those experiences a voice.
“100 Years of Australian Songwriting is a celebration of the songs that have soundtracked our lives and the songwriters who have helped define our national identity,” Morris writes.
She argues that Australian songs have captured stories and values across generations, while the anthology’s contributors have been invited to explore the music that has shaped Australian culture rather than establish a definitive canon.
The timing connects directly with APRA’s own history. APRA was established in 1926 and has spent a century representing Australian and Australasian songwriters, composers and music publishers. The anthology therefore uses the organisation’s centenary as an opportunity to consider not only where Australian songwriting has come from, but where it might go next.
Esther Anatolitis and Nicholas Pickard are the editors. Anatolitis has worked across arts and media leadership for two decades and is a writer, commentator and broadcaster. Pickard runs government relations and public affairs at APRA AMCOS and proposed the anthology as part of the organisation’s centenary program. He is also a former arts journalist and theatre critic, former chair of the Australian Society of Authors, chair of the NSW Literature Advisory Board and a board member of Screen Australia.
The essays will be accompanied by curated audio streaming playlists, allowing readers to move between the written discussion and the music itself.
That combination gives 100 Years of Australian Songwriting a purpose beyond retrospective celebration. By placing familiar songs alongside overlooked pieces and examining them through different cultural and historical perspectives, the anthology treats songwriting as a record of Australian life and a force that has helped shape it.
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