"Khe Sanh" by Cold Chisel

Reranked Position: #1

Last updated: March 9, 2014

Appearances

• All-Time 1998: #94
• All-Time 1989: #95

I'm always going to be strongly biased for anything by Cold Chisel - they were from Elizabeth, South Australia, where my family is from and many of them still live. My father is heavily into Australian music; he made sure I had an awareness of where great local music came from.

Khe Sanh is great karaoke music, and is also fantastic for drunken evenings with friends. The thing is, Khe Sanh's lyrics aren't really as upbeat and positive as the music would have you believe. If people were to actually listen to the lyrics, they'd soon discover that the character that sings the song is suffering PTSD, sleeping with prostitutes, has drug addictions and just can't settle down - not surprising, considering the character was a Vietnam War veteran.

Don Walker, Khe Sanh's composer, writes damn good music and knew how to push buttons. Khe Sanh was originally banned for its lyrics and the only station that would play it was 2JJ (now Triple J). I can listen to Khe Sanh over and over and over and over... There's something about the simple arrangement, the balance between guitar, piano, drums and harmonica, the country sound, the positiveness even when the character's life hasn't exactly been the most settled post-Vietnam that just meshes together and works.

Khe Sanh is full of brilliance, and all of Australia knows it. APRA members even placed it number eight on its list of all-time best Australian songs in 2001. There should be no surprise when I say that this is the new number 1 on Hottest 100 Reranked.