Did you know the unforgettable Doctor Who music – one of the most iconic television scores of all time – was written by an Australian composer? 

That’s right. While the theme for the long-running BBC series, with its otherworldly pulsing bassline, was produced and recorded by English musician Delia Derbyshire, it was written by Australian composer Ron Grainer.

First recorded in 1963, the Doctor Who theme is believed to be the first electronic music theme created for television. Each note was painstakingly realised by Derbyshire using musique concrète techniques – cutting, splicing, and manipulating analogue tape recordings of white noise, a test-tone oscillator, and a single plucked string.

The theme captures the listener’s attention right from the start with its striking opening and swirling electronic sounds, even before Ron Grainer’s eerie melody begins. Its originality would have been startling for viewers in the 1960s. The opening sting was added for this version and was not part of the television broadcasts, but the rest closely resembles the 1963 original. While later versions added more complexity, the original's simplicity contributes to its charm. 

Grainer’s 1963 melody served as the theme music, with minor edits, until the end of season 17 in 1980. While later arrangements have been introduced, his original composition remains intact and is still in use today. 

Read more about Ron Grainer and listen to a 15-minute interview with him from 1966

Ron Grainer image on Sounds of Australia page: The Australian Londoners (1965)

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Who hasn’t belted out Tina Arena’s ‘Chains’ on a summer road trip? 

Now part of the NFSA’s Sounds of Australia collection, ‘Chains’ became a career-defining moment for Tina upon its release in August 1994. The song reached No. 4 on the Australian charts, No. 6 in the UK, No. 20 in Canada, and No. 38 in the USA, cementing her place on the global stage. 

Alongside the second single, ‘Sorrento Moon (I Remember)’, ‘Chains’ helped propel Tina’s album Don’t Ask to become one of Australia’s highest-selling albums, winning multiple ARIA Awards, including Album of the Year. 

The visuals of the music video for ‘Chains’ reflect the song’s smoky dance beats and powerhouse vocals with a striking narrative. Tina, playing a spurned lover, sits in a darkened, cloth-covered apartment, shedding her bitter past by removing the coverings and discarding items tied to her pain. As light pours in, she dances joyfully, finishing with a confident smile at the camera. 

The song’s enduring popularity continues, with re-releases in 2015 featuring Jessica Mauboy and the Veronicas, a disco-inspired ‘S&M Remix’ in 2019, and a 30th-anniversary reimagining in 2024 by Melbourne dance duo SHOUSE. 

Listen to an excerpt from a February 1995 radio interview on Sydney’s MIX 106.5 where Tina Arena describes the mixed emotions she felt when she first heard ‘Chains’ on the radio.

Watch Tina Arena's first and last appearances on Young Talent Time. 

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Before internet-connected devices kept us on schedule, how did Australians check the time? By calling the Speaking Clock.

This service, familiar to generations of Australians, was introduced by the Postmaster-General’s Department in 1953 and could be accessed by dialling 1194.

The original system used rotating glass discs with voice recordings of hours, minutes, and seconds, provided by ABC broadcaster and actor Gordon Gow. It was eventually upgraded to a fully electronic system in 1990.

Telstra called time on the service at midnight on 1 October 2019, but its legacy continues. That same day, musician Ryan Monro (from the Cat Empire) created a web-based simulation to preserve the experience.

The clip above is an example of Gow giving the time. This is what you might have heard if you rang 1194 in 1954.

Watch a short documentary called The Speaking Clock, made by the Postmaster-General’s Department in 1955.

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In 1996, Nova Peris became the first Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander to win a gold medal at the Olympics, as part of the women’s field hockey team. 

After making history on the field, Peris turned her attention to politics. In 2013, she became the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Federal Parliament. Her maiden speech, a profound and historic moment, is one of the 10 additions to the NFSA’s Sounds of Australia collection in 2024. 

Peris spoke passionately about the struggles of her people. She declared she would give up her accolades ‘in a heartbeat’ to see First Nations Australians free, healthy and able to fully participate in the nation’s destiny.  

Watch a clip of Aaron Pedersen interviewing Peris in 2012 for Who We Are in Sport. 

‘Kickin’ to the Undersound’ was the first single released by Sound Unlimited from their debut studio album A Postcard from the Edge of the Under-side (1992), becoming the first Australian hip hop song to reach the Top 20 in the Australian charts.

Sound Unlimited, formerly Sound Unlimited Posse and Westside Posse, was also the first Australian hip hop act signed to a major label (CBS Records/Sony BMG) during the 1990s. Group members included brother and sister Rosano (El Assassin) and Tina Martinez, MC Kode Blue and Vlad DJ BTL. In 1990, following the release of their single ‘Peace by Piece (By Piece Mix)’, they supported the Australian tours of visiting artists Public Enemy, De La Soul and New Kids on the Block.

In ‘Kickin’ to the Undersound’, members introduce themselves over sampled and programmed beats, with the ‘land down under’ line accompanied by a Men at Work sample. The lyrics to ‘Undersound’ draw on Sound Unlimited’s Western Sydney roots and Spanish, Filipino and Russian heritage.  

The music video matches the infectious energy of the song, with the visuals cut to the dance-friendly beat. The band members are in constant motion, their outfits offering joyous pops of colour against an otherwise nondescript studio background. The pace slows for a brief black-and-white interlude with the iconic Harbour Bridge used as backdrop, but otherwise the energy and movement doesn’t let up for three minutes.

‘Kickin’ to the Undersound’ was the highest charting of five singles from the album. Their success led to performances at Big Day Out later the same year and an ARIA Award nomination in 1994 for the album’s last single, ‘One More from the City’, the same year the group split up. 

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Have you heard of the Christmas Island Pipistrelle? Probably not, and you may never have the chance to. This tiny microbat, weighing only three grams and scientifically named Pipistrellus murrayi, was once found exclusively on Christmas Island. Unfortunately, it was declared extinct in 2017. 

In 2009, a group of eight scientists and volunteers from organisations including Zoos Victoria, the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, and the Australasian Bat Society, spent four weeks surveying the island. They managed to record the Pipistrelle’s echolocation but never captured or observed the bat again. Its ultrasonic call, too high-pitched for human ears, has now been added to the NFSA’s Sounds of Australia collection, preserved as a record of the species’ final days. 

The sound was carefully adjusted by the NFSA’s sound engineers to make it audible and accessible, serving as a significant addition to the collection. 

The bat was known to be widespread between its first description in 1900 and the 1980s, but ultrasonic monitoring through the 1990s showed a rapid decline due to issues such as phosphate mining, roost disturbance and introduced species including the yellow crazy ant and black rat. 

Christmas Island has now lost four of its five native mammals, contributing to the 38 mammal species that have become extinct across Australia since colonisation. 

Image on Sounds of Australia page: courtesy Dr Lindy Lumsden

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The earliest extant in-language broadcasts by 2EA (then SBS Radio, now SBS Audio), including Arabic, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Spanish, and Yugoslav programs, represent the birth of multilingual and multicultural broadcasting on Australian radio.   

2EA began broadcasting on 9 June 1975, with EA standing for Ethnic Australia. It was opened in Sydney by Al Grassby, former Minister for Immigration, with the first broadcast in Greek. Later that month, 3EA opened in Melbourne. The initial purpose of the stations was to inform multilingual communities about proposed changes in the healthcare system brought by the new Medibank scheme.  

During 1977, programming and language coverage grew to 119 hours per week in 33 languages on 2EA and 103 hours per week in 22 languages on 3EA. As SBS celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025, it continues to inform, educate and entertain all Australians in more than 60 languages. 

This clip is from a Greek broadcast on 2EA on 30 June 1975.

Watch an excerpt from a Network Ten news report from June 1977 about 2EA’s rapid growth and potential future direction. 

Watch a clip from 25 Years of SBS Radio (2000) describing the early days of 2EA and 3EA and the diversity of the communities involved in their formation.

2EA image on Sounds of Australia page: Greek program presenters Sophia Catharios and Takis Kaldis. Courtesy: National Archives of Australia and SBS 

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Murawari man Jimmie Barker was the first known First Nations Australian to use recorded sound as a tool to preserve and document Aboriginal culture. His pioneering work produced over 100 hours of audio recordings across 21 collections, now preserved by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). 

Jimmie Barker (1900–1972) grew up on Mundiwa, an Aboriginal reservation on the Culgoa River in New South Wales, before moving to ‘Milroy’ sheep station with his mother Maggie and younger brother Billy. As a boy at Milroy, Barker undertook his own pioneering experiments in electricity generation and sound recording. He later moved to Brewarrina Mission Station.

In the late 1960s, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS, later AIATSIS) initiated a recording project with Barker. Many of these recordings (made between 1968 and 1972) include Barker’s detailed descriptions of, and reflections upon, what he refers to as ‘the old ways’.

In this clip from 1971, Barker talks about the early recordings he made of Murawari man Clyde Marshall (also known as King Clyde) speaking a local Ngemba dialect. Barker had begun recording residents of the Brewarrina Mission in the 1920s to preserve their traditional songs and language and his recordings represent a crucial link with pre-colonial Muruwari and Ngemba culture.

Explore more of the Jimmie Barker collections in the Pretty Little Lines online exhibition on the AIATSIS website. 

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The ‘Big cold beer’ Victoria Bitter advertisements for Carlton & United Breweries, voiced by Australian actor John Meillon (1934–1989), are arguably Australia’s most iconic beer commercials. 

Initially conceived for Carlton & United Breweries’ (CUB) Bulimba Gold Top beer in 1965, the radio and TV campaign was reworked for the Victoria Bitter brand in 1967. John Meillon returned for the voice-overs, and the ads featured a new version of the instrumental music composed by Bob (Beetles) Young. The 1968 recording of John Meillon’s legendary voice-over is now officially part of our Sounds of Australia.

This clip features a 60-second version of a 1970 advertisement for television (there were also shorter 30-second variations). While the ad includes shots of women enjoying a beer alongside the men, it conforms to the gender stereotyping common in advertising campaigns of the era, with men performing manual labour and women in the kitchen or handing a beer to the hardworking man. 

With his rich baritone and impassioned delivery, John Meillon’s voice was integral to the success of the advertisements. The actor’s long list of credits includes The Sundowners (1960), Walkabout and Wake in Fright (both 1971), The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), The Picture Show Man (1977), The Dismissal (1983) and Crocodile Dundee (1986). He began his career in 1940s radio drama and worked across radio, film, TV and theatre, winning both AFI and Logie Awards for his acting. 

The VB campaign ran continuously, with only minor variations, for two decades until Meillon’s death in 1989. With the approval of the Meillon family, CUB has continued to use the actor’s voice through digital remastering and by recutting the original recordings.  

Watch more vintage advertisements and see advertising campaigns for Cadbury Chocolates and Holden Cars from the same era. 

The earliest extant in-language broadcasts by 2EA (then SBS Radio, now SBS Audio), including Arabic, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Spanish, and Yugoslav programs, represent the birth of multilingual and multicultural broadcasting on Australian radio.   

2EA began broadcasting on 9 June 1975, with EA standing for Ethnic Australia. It was opened in Sydney by Al Grassby, former Minister for Immigration, with the first broadcast in Greek. Later that month, 3EA opened in Melbourne. The initial purpose of the stations was to inform multilingual communities about proposed changes in the healthcare system brought by the new Medibank scheme.  

During 1977, programming and language coverage grew to 119 hours per week in 33 languages on 2EA and 103 hours per week in 22 languages on 3EA. As SBS celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025, it continues to inform, educate and entertain all Australians in more than 60 languages. 

This clip is from an Arabic broadcast on 2EA on 12 June 1975.

Watch an excerpt from a Network Ten news report from June 1977 about 2EA’s rapid growth and potential future direction. 

Watch a clip from 25 Years of SBS Radio (2000) describing the early days of 2EA and 3EA and the diversity of the communities involved in their formation.

2EA image on Sounds of Australia page: Greek program presenters Sophia Catharios and Takis Kaldis. Courtesy: National Archives of Australia and SBS 

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Jessie Street (1889–1970) was a leading Australian feminist campaigning for women’s rights from the 1920s to the 1960s. She was the only female Australian delegate to the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organisation (UNCIO) in 1945.  

In this recording, we hear a speech made by Street at the first meeting of the Women's International Radio League (WIRL) on 28 May 1945 at the St Francis Hotel, San Francisco. 

Listen to clip 2, in which Street describes the work of the Australian Women’s Charter Committee and their preparation for the conference. The committee was arguing for the insertion of the word 'sex' in the clause 'without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion' wherever it occurs in the Charter of the United Nations. They also wanted to enshrine in the charter the principle of equality of status between women and men.

It is unknown if this recording was ever broadcast in Australia; it was most probably associated with an American radio broadcast. 

Listen to the full speech and read more about Jessie Street and the UN conference.

Image of Jessie Street on Sounds of Australia page: nla.obj-231551090-1, courtesy National Library of Australia

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Jessie Street (1889–1970) was a leading Australian feminist campaigning for women’s rights from the 1920s to the 1960s. She was the only female Australian delegate to the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organisation (UNCIO) in 1945.  

In this recording, we hear a speech made by Street at the first meeting of the Women's International Radio League (WIRL) on 28 May 1945 at the St Francis Hotel, San Francisco. 

Listen to clip 1, in which Abby Morrison Ricker, President of the WIRL, introduces Jessie Street. 

It is unknown if this recording was ever broadcast in Australia; it was most probably associated with an American radio broadcast. 

Listen to the full speech and read more about Jessie Street and the UN conference.

Image of Jessie Street on Sounds of Australia page: nla.obj-231551090-1, courtesy National Library of Australia
Image above: nla.obj-136980683-1, courtesy National Library of Australia

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