The Triffids - Wide Open Road (1986)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- The Triffids - Wide Open Road
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As fresh, haunting and powerful today as it was back in 1986. You don't listen to this and think "hmm, yeah, an 80s song". You just feel a brilliant song reaching in, and touching your heart. Quite rightly in APRA's Top 30 Australian Songs of all Time.
I was driving in outback Queensland and had put "Born Sandy Devotional" on, and when it came to this track it just captured the feeling of driving in the outback searching for something. I can't think of any track that better captures something uniquely Australia.
And yes, you do think, 'yeah, an 80's song'!
All of Born Sandy is stunning, but this one really stands out for me. It's unabashedly gigantic, deliberately out of step with mid-'80s indie times, and as a result completely unique. I still miss David.😔🎸
A universal song for all beautiful in 86 as it is 2024
I love this song so much. It hurts brutally to think that Dave McComb was just 24 by then; an absolute prodigy, such a gifted poet and a divine singer. God I wish he was still around.
This is one of the most essential Australian songs ever: the breadth of its poetry and lyric, the great landscape of its music...a long time ago, it followed me all over England and Europe across a year of backpacking, and I felt so proud to know it as somehow "mine": the loneliness, desolation and angst of the outsider lost in a great landscape...Dave and the band were such exceptional musicians and story tellers. After so many years, the power of this song has diminished not one iota - as with a favourite book, I return to it and feel forever haunted, nourished and inspired.
right up there with this one............ th-cam.com/video/DT3kLBCMxxE/w-d-xo.html Australian Crawl - Daughters Of The Northern Coast (1982) ....sons of beaches ;)
This song is completely symbolic of me leaving Mandurah (the album cover) and doing the road trip across the Nullarbor to live in Brisbane. I became so discontented with my life and left all my loved ones behind to better my situation, especially when community values were becoming non existent. I grew up in a West Australian wheatbelt town and the film clip shows such similar landscape. I felt like I had cut all my ties when I did the trip across and it was so surreal. That Wide Open Road experience was like "Then I Realised". When I started doing gigs in Brisbane I wrote a song about the trip and it kind of parallels this song without knowing it until recently. It is very relevant as it correlates with having left a girlfriend behind also. It is a massive part of the soundtrack for my pilgrimage in life.
Good story mate
Thanks Damian for sharing your story, one of many which create you. Can tell though that experience was a very significant one. As a flow music creator, I've had the exact experience you're talking of, how only now, or over time, words/sentiments from songs take on a whole new meaning. I've actually been thanking my younger self lately as been experiencing & finding new meanings in my own work. Is spectacular to experience! May you still be creating your music - I've had times in my life i couldn't even look at my guitars let alone pick one up, as they'd represented better times. Then, once, in this state, I Did pick it up, & immediately thought how stoopid I'd been. Also, negative influence, doesn't want us in our true happiness. As when we shine, our controllers cease to exist.
Whoa! Did Not mean to go on there, just your story resonated with me. Much love, protection & peace of heart & mind be Yours brother. nsw, south coast
I don't write music, but I do write poetry in three languages (English, Filipino and Cebuano), and it's the experiences both positive and negative that happen in our lives that keeps the creativity coming! In my case, I retired after marrying a Filipina, and I now live with her in Mindanao Philippines. It was a big move, and I left family behind too. I don't regret it, but of course I still love Australia too! Cheers mate, and keep up the good work with your music!
I love the story of yours that goes with this. One of the great levellers - having a quiet drink, a common interest, a good meal, or a good song.
We see each other more clearly. Love it mate.
Symbolic for my family..Theme song for our 10 yr Adventure ...
One of those songs you don't so much hear as feel. Absolutely stunning, even 38 years later ❤
Don't care what anyone else thinks, the lyrics "I yelled my insides out at the sun" would have to be one of the most powerful lines ever sung.
yeah but the lyrics after that were more poignant
"I went out into the fat lands, hunting down you and him"
_"So if you disappear out of view_
_You know I will never say goodbye_
_And though I try to forget it_
_You will make me call your name_
_And I'll shout it to the blue summer sky"_
Rivaled by this Hunter's and Collector's ckassic
Indeed
If only we appreciated the brilliance musicians like David McComb while they lived . Go out and support your local musicians. Such a talented song writer. Cheers to everyone who ended up here because you've got very good taste in music.
Ultimate Australian "road trip" music!
The Triffids were one of Australia's best bands ever.
LRB
inxs
@Klaas Vos yes!
This song has made it into the national sound and film archive's iconic aussie song list.
One of the best Aussie songs ever written.
No you're wrong. It's one of the best songs ever written,period
And so underloved 😢
I've lived outside Australia for about the last 15 years, but this is one of those intrinsically Australian songs that takes me back on a really gtutural, emotional level. Life is a wide open road, a beautiful thing indeed.
Where do u live now?
ONYA
I am thoroughly disappointed that this song only has 166 likes. This is one of the greatest Aussie songs ever!
Simple chords, but the music is filled with such space and detail, befitting a song about the vastness of rhe Australian outback. The drums, the slide guitar, keyboards.
Thankyou David McComb for your beautiful song writing and singing. We were lucky to have you.
Greetings from the US. I feel so homesick
I still live with the hurt. After more than 30 years.
Such an atmospheric song. Dave Fanning on Irish radio used to play this all the time back in '86.
Dave Fanning has great taste. I'm an Aussie living in Ireland now and always visit this track when I'm homesick.
@@rosec6680🤠
I'm a WA boy and this song means a lot to me. I have driven past those places in the video many times over the past 40 years.
Still makes me cry after ALL these years. Absolutely fantastic song
Me too, just the absolute resonance of the lyrics. Always gets me.
Born Sandy Devotional is one of the most criminally underrated Albums ever released by an Aussie Band
Along w the go betweens as a band
The amount of blank faces when people ask me who my favourite Aussie bands are and my response is "The Triffids, Saints, Go Betweens" is quite worrying
Damon Langley And I guarantee you that if you asked those people who their fave Aussie bands are, they'd reply with all these bands with British/Kiwi members...
P.S. You are an Aussie, right? Just checking
I heard it more than a thousand times in the 80's
The Triffids were popular in NZ. This is a wonderful album. I live in Sydney now. Went to a triffids tribute concert in 2008 !
Still tears me apart! Just EPIC....... nothing less......
David McComb...one of the most underrated songwriters of his generation
thats more than true
They were underrated too
Not under-rated in THIS here brain...bury me deep in his songs...
Not underrated, more like under appreciated.
Did the triffids ever play with the go betweens? This and cattle and cane does something to you.....beyond words
The best Australian song, i think. Captures the space, the beauty, the isolation and the alienation.
A top,top song from a topnotch band. Always loved the Triffids. From a swedish fan.
Stunning track. Don't think the video anywhere near does it justice, but hey it was the 80s... If you grew up in Western Australia it must have felt like the loneliest place on Earth, and this sounds like the loneliest song ever written. Perfectly sums up the meloncholy of leaving someone you love behind, being free at last to go 'anyplace that you want to go' - and the feeling of isolation and utter loneliness that comes with it. RIP David McComb.
Listened to this song every morning when travelling. Got me through 11 countries with my little boy.
Awww bless
Brings me to tears everytime i hear it-written in a time when oz music was pure and truly original.
I'm a Perth boy who my heart broken for the first time in the summer of 1986/87. This was my anthem.
I started late with Black Swan in '89. Goodbye Little Boy was played in Home and Away, lol. It was Too Hot to Move that hooked me. Stuck around then went back for Born Sandy Devotional with TheSeabirds enchanting me. A fantastic band, David McComb was a wonderful vocalist and lyricist. The older I get, the better The Triffids sound. It's so tragic his back condition ruined and ultimately ended his life.
The great song of Western Australia
beautiful song thats just gotten more beautiful with time... RIP David
Incredible song which naturally conjures up images of Australia, but McComb's poetic brilliance betrays the real meaning of of the song which is about unrequited love.
Pure genius.
Top film clip , accompanying an gorgeous piece of melodic brilliance .
This is THE Sandgroper anthem. The ultimate Western Australian heartbreaker. Sundays at a session, Saturday nights at the Parrot.
Growing up in Sydney still felt lonely, even between all the hustle and bustle. The Triffids knew how to emote everything I never did.
Always felt lonely. Still do.
Its not the town its the soul.
Some of us just dont touch others or connect.
Never got tired of this song, it’s to good.
Go and get that album, it’s great.
Such a big sound. Evocative and stirring. Almost to tears. Of another time. Lost love maybe? I suddenly release I am lost in time. Lost in another time, that I don't want to leave, even though it stirs me to tears. A strange feeling. Sadness and joy intertwined. PS Saw this great band in 1989 at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney.
Beautifully timeless song from underrated legends
From an album brimming with poetry and emotion, the quintessential song of loneliness and isolation. It sits in my top three Australian songs of all time, along with "Throw Your Arms Around Me" by Hunters & Collectors and "The Unguarded Moment" by The Church. I'm living overseas now, but hearing any of those songs takes me back to the land of my birth. Dave McComb, gone too soon!
Nice reccos for the uninitiated...Dont forget Under the Milky Way Tonight too !
Gidday Geoffery. You are spot on. Three brilliant songs written by wonderful song writers. I'm listening to Wide Open Road in Central Java, Indonesia where I've been living for years. It really can make me miss Perth at times but I have a good life here.
@Klaas Vos g'day mate, or as Filipinos would say, mabuhay! Midnight Oil were the more popular of the two in Australia. I understand that The Triffids were more popular in the UK and Europe. Midnight Oil had many songs that were very political, and indeed Peter Garrett, the lead singer of Midnight Oil, went on to become a Labor Party minister (Minister for the Environment of course!). Dave McComb, the lead singer and songwriter for The Triffids, on the other hand had a rather troubled life including drug addiction, a major car accident, and a heart transplant. His music was poetic and introspective mainly, and I would compare The Triffids to The Doors, while Midnight Oil might be more similar to say Greenday or R.E.M. The Triffids were never as popular in Australia as they deserved to be. You might also like to listen on TH-cam to some of their other classic songs, like "Bury Me Deep In Love" and "Estuary Bed". The album "Born Sandy Devotional" can also be found in its entirety on TH-cam, and you will understand upon listening why I compare The Triffids to The Doors.
@Klaas Vos what I meant about The Triffids was that they were more popular in Europe and the UK than they were in Australia. Midnight Oil was always more popular than them anywhere in the world. Great to hear you mention 1927. I still have their first album back in Australia, but yes I live in Mindanao, Philippines now. Of course, the most successful Aussie bands have been AC/DC and The Little River Band. If you haven't already, check out The Church, and Hunters and Collectors. The Whitlams are also worth a listen!
There has never been a more quintessential Australian song ever written. Mccomb simply nails the desolation and loneliness of isolation from someone and somethings that you truly love. The Chasm that exists between reality and longing can not be more beautifully expressed by anyone ever!
Vale David McComb and truly wonderful Triffids
Mr (Robert) McComb was my geography teacher! What a legend.
...Also the song is definitely an ANTHEM of road trips around this great land ! This and Lloyd Cole...perfect driving music...New England Highway, here we come !
Esta cancion merece tener mas de 5 millones de vistas, es una obra maestra para los que amamos la soledad, la libertad, la paz y la armonia con Dios, la naturaleza y nosotros mismos
To the great Australian roadtrip. Sometimes perilous. Always magic.
It's an utter mystery to me why so few back in the day got the genius of the Triffids and David McComb. Mysterious, wistful, melancholic, unforgettable. They could really make you feel something...
Still prods me in the soul decades later...
The best song to play on a road trip. What talent they had.
Guys, I've been searching for this song for 8 years!!! Just found it, by humming the chorus on Google Search 😂
If this song had been written and performed by Bruce Springsteen, it would be right up there among his biggest and best hits and EVERYBODY would have heard it and no doubt raved about it... what a huge injustice it was (and still is) that The Triffids were largely ignored in Australia.
PRINCE FAN HERE!!
My Bro Loves Bruce n Da Triffids!!now i Know Y🙏💪
That is what Steve Kilby from the Church said - is that you Steve?
@@nnoddy8161 No... not Steve... great minds just think alike... that's all :-)
Kiwi here. Heard this album growing up in NZ. Been to a famous Triffids tribute concert. 2007 sydney festival.
Cruel sea another underrated band
Just gets better with every passing year....brilliant!
Fantastic song. There's even an iconic Melbourne cafe called Wide Open Road now.
Shivers down my spine every time I hear this.
This is my personal Australian National Anthem.
AussieMark909 It should be speaking as a NZ from Northern Ireland
+AussieMark909 I LOVE MY BAND AND I AM IRIISH
Lots of wide open roads - shame Kybher Pass aint in our Banana Flavoured Big M Land !!
rubicon nz I wish we had Big M's in NSW ☹
i agree
This is what music is for. This is breathing in the outback sky. What a band!
I’ve never understood how the Triffids weren’t as “hailed” as the Hoodoo’s or Oils, this song makes my chest ache and makes me yearn to hit the road, still ❤️
God Bless this beautiful Great Southern Land. We owe the Triffids big time! Geez it takes me back. I was 25yrs old then and I was into the Celibates. My GF was into the Triffids, but being the yob I was I NEVER saw them but made her endure the Celibates. I now know the error of my ways and I can't take it back other than to realise I was wrong to not experience it. Chicks eh? They have it all over we males intrinsically and instinctively!
Maybe intrinsically and instinctively, but definitely not logically...
Nah.back then my gf put a fkn communards tape in my car stereo
Nek minit it was under the wheels of a STA bus (this was on george st sydney on a saturday night)
😎
RIP David. 20 years gone today.
These guys are still listened to by a lot of the worlds great musos
Loved this song back in the day & still do. Great song and still regularly listen to it. Gingin roadhouse
Just listening to 'My Generation' with Dangerous Dave interviewing Paul Kelly, who rated this song as the quintessential Australian song. This song is on my play list when taking the bike out to the red centre, just me and the track. Timeless classic, we've all come here because we know isolation.
Why haven't I heard of them before? I came looking for the monstrous plants in Wyndham's novel and found this great Aussie band.
Ha! wot a sting in life's tale.Good on you . Sleep no more!
Lol!!! I'm so glad your search led you to The Triffids. As a native of Perth I was always very proud of them, like everybody else from the West. RIP David Mccomb.
Magnificent song, I was born 1973. Whoo
One of the best songs ever written.
love the shot of the HQ coming down the road. classic.
That guy had a such a powerful and distinctive voice. Unmatched.
Hear hear
Heartbreaking. Great storytelling. The Seabirds from same album too.
and then Estuary Bed... what a combination!
First time hearing this song (pretty sure). Bloody awesome & just timeless.
Stupenda, una delle più belle di tutti i tempi...per me😎
I don't remember this song back then maybe I have Old Timers but I love it it's a road trip song. I've lived on the road with my husband and had 4 children on the road moving moving moving it was easy back then, everything was cheaper. We worked from town to town.
I'll introduce my Filipina wife and her male cousin who is my drinking mate to this song. Pity it's not on our videoke here in Mindanao Philippines! What a classic!
rock and roll
just the heads up bro, hes not her cousin!
HQ rocking on down the road those ol girls can take a beating..so Australian.. You gotta love this country
this is the soul of a West Australian, the most isolated place on earth
and that why we love WA.
Loved this song so much. When young and searching. Saw Dave McComb live. A beautiful performer
Great song. The whole album is a master piece. A vast, open, empty continent on a 12" disc. You can hear the heat of Western Australian summer in between the grooves, your pours open as you listen the the blue and wide horizon in front of you. This isn't the most underrated album by an Aussie band. No, this is the most underrated album from anywhere.
you can feel the summer between the grooves... Beautiful man you should write music.
@@grantperkins368 Thank you . I do lol
@@butterflyKiss604 Fantastic! Link?
The local commercial radio station in my town has never played this song. They play four tracks by INXS every day but refuse to acknowledge anything slightly away from big commercial productions.
this song gives me goosebumps
For a quintessentially Australian song, the Triffids’ Wide Open Road owes a lot to absence from Australia.
The band travelled far and often from their Perth origins, first back and forth across the Nullarbor, then to London and northern Europe, where for a long time they were more widely appreciated than in their home country.
fire!
A holiday that no lockdown can stop
They had an epiphany
Still more appreciated in Europe than their own country.
@@dwblurb Criminal what sheep do in AU ffs...
A song that could only be about Australia. The band that was the only one to create such a masterpiece. It's my forever song.
I'm still heartbroken, 17 years later.
I was 18 when this was released. So much great Australia music then inc from Perth where I'm from.
I was 25, so I saw all of the great Perth Bands in the late 70's and all of the 80's at pub gigs. A great time for the Perth Music Scene. I could go any night of the week to see a live gig with these bands. And the old Sunday afternoon sessions were the best during summer. Cheers
IMO one of the greatest bands ever and certainly one of the most underrated.
They were also involved in the making of my favorite forgotten album, Bill Drummond's "the Man". The album Drummond released before he formed the infamous and world shaking KLF.
Davnar Ragnar That I did not know !
Thanks for that, KLF are as real as it gets !
Graham Lee played pedal steel on both KLF albums!
I’m 54 man I was young once in 1984 I worked all over the Northern Territory working on the road gangs operating scrapers and rollers on the Stuart highway life was easy then can you see now why I can’t move forward why I live in the past I hate it but look now my country has been sold off Covid19 all this crap! Yeah I’m older now but I can’t see any future man nothing !!! So I come here play this great song sit back and dream of the past on the Wide open Road..
loved this then, and love it now. brilliant music.
great song,great band,captures the essence of this country.
Every time I have beers and end up youtubing I always end up here fucken great song
Same as. Same as.
and me 3
its a given. they don't write em like his anymore
9 months ago I'm still drinking beers and ending up here
Chris Egan Kenoath!
Brilliant song. I make regular trips to western NSW from Sydney and this song is a favourite when it comes on from my playlist.
One of the 10 Best Aussie Songs ever.
How is shit
Listening to this in lockdown... 8 weeks so far and no end in sight.
So beautiful and so under recognized
Las bandas de rock australianas en verdad si que tocaban hermoso, esta melodia hecha cancion demuestra el talento de los australianos en el rock, supera con creces al rock en español latino
lyrically brillant
musically brilliant
why do i need to find out about this band now
they're fuckin amaziing
the drums went off in my forehead
the guns went off in my chest
what the hell more do you want?
why wasn't this more popular when david was alive
better late than never friend. Ken from their home town. Enjoy.
Glad ya found them :-)
classic road trip song that is almost as old as me. I am 57 and the song is 35
RIP David McComb (February 17, 1962 - February 2, 1999), aged 36
You will be remembered as a legend.
brilliant band. Always went and saw ALL the great Perth Bands from the 70's and 80's. Perth created some great music back then.
Still does. Check out Tame Impala - especially first 2 albums
@@geology6594 Hear what you are saying, checked them out, but I dont know, just didn't really grab me. Nothing wrong with them and the music is good. But I prefer my music to have a louder and more powerful beat to it. And Davids voice is just smooth power with soul behind it. Tame Impala, a bit commercial. And really, just another love song! But each to their own. Cheers
Ahh, as I’m listening to this, I’m 21 again with everything in front of me..😊 🎶 Now I’m off to listen to Cattle & Cane.
Stuck in my head right now. Awesome song
Very simple instrumentation. It needs to be that way-the words deserve to be heard.
'Then I realise' ! One of my favourite tracks of all time ...
I wake up in the morning
Thinking I'm still by your side
I reach out just to touch you
Then I realize
It's a wide open road
It's a wide open road…
I really love this text.