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National Film and Sound Archive of AustraliaNational Film and Sound Archive
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
National Film and Sound Archive
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
National Film and Sound Archive

Cold Chisel – ‘Cheap Wine’

1980

Cold Chisel – ‘Cheap Wine’

1980

  • NFSA IDF5CT888B
  • TypeTelevision
  • MediumMoving Image
  • FormClip (an extract from a program or a music video clip), Music
  • GenresPopular music
  • Year1980

Cold Chisel defined the pub-rock sound, and ‘Cheap Wine’ (1980) distilled it into a Top Ten single. Written by Don Walker, it focused on someone down on their luck but still having a good time – a theme the band embodied. Directed by Peter Cox, the video was shot in Jimmy Barnes’ Elizabeth Bay flat, and shows him getting dressed among the detritus of a party while the band jam in the lounge. The clip includes a cockfight scene and Barnes in a cocaine-referencing T-shirt – elements that feel edgy, even troubling, today. But that’s Chisel: unvarnished and unrepentant. The song is scrappy, anthemic and utterly theirs, cementing the band as the sound of working-class rebellion.

Cold Chisel defined the pub-rock sound, and ‘Cheap Wine’ (1980) distilled it into a Top Ten single. Written by Don Walker, it focused on someone down on their luck but still having a good time – a theme the band embodied. Directed by Peter Cox, the video was shot in Jimmy Barnes’ Elizabeth Bay flat, and shows him getting dressed among the detritus of a party while the band jam in the lounge. The clip includes a cockfight scene and Barnes in a cocaine-referencing T-shirt – elements that feel edgy, even troubling, today. But that’s Chisel: unvarnished and unrepentant. The song is scrappy, anthemic and utterly theirs, cementing the band as the sound of working-class rebellion.

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