Playing to Win by Jeff Apter

Author:Jeff Apter [Apter, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nero

John still wasn’t in the best of psychological shape when the time came to give Whispering Jack its first public airing. Jillian had to drag him out to the car, and then John spent much of the drive to AAV in Melbourne in the passenger seat, sobbing. He was an emotional wreck, hopeless.

‘What if no-one likes it?’ he asked between sobs. ‘What then? We’re done for.’

Jillian shot him a hard look. ‘Come on, pull yourself together. You’ve come too far with this record. You’ve got to go through with this.’

John’s main concern wasn’t whether it’d be a hit, but that it would at least be judged on its merits. He hoped ‘that it would get a fair look at, a fair listen to, by the people who had preconceptions about me.’ He wanted to shake off the stigma of ‘Sadie’ forever and start anew.

John brightened up at the party, thanks to a hefty slug of his favourite tipple, brandy – he had several slugs as the night went on – and the gift of a CD player. Times were so tough for the Farnhams that they didn’t even own one. RCA and Wheatley had decided that Whispering Jack would be the first Australian-made album to be released on CD; at least now he could play it at home.

John’s mood had improved noticeably by the time of filming the ‘You’re the Voice’ video. With the rise of MTV, video budgets were already running into the six figures – in 1987, Sony forked out a staggering $2.2 million for Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’, directed by Martin Scorsese. ‘You’re the Voice’ didn’t compare; its budget was a measly $10,000. But it was money well spent.

Based on an idea from Ross Fraser, who’d envisioned the clip in black and white with splashes of colour, Farnham opened ‘You’re the Voice’ with a spot-on impression of newsreader Brian Henderson, horn-rimmed specs and all. He announced austerely, ‘Good evening, here is the news’ as images of war and tragedy and bloodshed exploded behind him. As the video continued, outspoken journo Derryn Hinch and his then wife, actress Jacki Weaver, convincingly played a warring couple from the ’burbs, while Farnham’s agent Frank Stivala turned up, as did Vince Leigh, the drummer from Melbourne pop band Pseudo Echo. Even John’s make-up artist got a gig.

Skyhooks’ bassist Greg Macainsh, who’d just signed on for Farnham’s touring band, also appeared in the clip. A few years back, the idea of John working with Macainsh, the most politically motivated songwriter to ever infiltrate the Oz mainstream, was highly unlikely, but ‘You’re the Voice’ changed everything. It wasn’t quite Skyhooks’ ‘Whatever Happened to the Revolution’, but when ‘You’re the Voice’ did hit, it hit hard and wide. People connected with the lyric and the raw, real emotion of the song.

John, dressed in a full-length grey Driza-Bone – again on the suggestion of Fraser – looked like a man primed for action, his windswept hair seemingly taking on a life of its own. In five

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