Put on a scruffy jacket, stand outside a posh restaurant and watch who walks in. That’s more or less how “Beautiful People” by Australian Crawl feels. It was the band’s first single, released in 1979, and it’s a cheeky, sharp-tongued look at the folk who love to be seen. It’s also the song that introduced a young James Reyne to the whole country, with both of his arms in plaster, no less. Decades later, the pretentious types it pokes fun at are still all around us, probably photographing their brunch. So what was the song really about, and why does it still make us smile? Pull up a chair, because there’s a cracking yarn behind this one.
Meet the Crawl
Australian Crawl began in 1978, when singer James Reyne and lead guitarist Simon Binks formed a band with a bunch of mates around Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. They took their name from the swimming stroke, the front crawl that Aussies like to call the Australian crawl, which tells you plenty about their love of sun, surf and salt. They played their first gig in October 1978 and quickly became favourites on the pub circuit. In time the lineup around Reyne and Binks grew to include brothers Bill and Guy McDonough, bassist Paul Williams and rhythm guitarist Brad Robinson. Then a big break arrived. David Briggs, guitarist with Little River Band, spotted something special, helped the group land a recording deal with EMI, and produced their first single. That single was “Beautiful People”, and what a way to announce yourselves to the world.
The Target: Toorak Society
So who exactly were the beautiful people? Reyne wrote the song with Mark Hudson, a former bandmate, and it takes aim at the vacuous social set of mid-1970s Toorak, one of Melbourne’s poshest suburbs. In 1975 Reyne was living in South Yarra, studying at Monash University and playing drums in a band called Archie Slammit and the Doors. He had a front-row seat to a particular kind of person: the ones who spent more energy looking important than doing anything interesting. Years later he explained that he’d simply been watching people put on airs, and that pretension seemed to be everywhere, probably even more so today, with whole magazines devoted to it. He also remembered 1975 as a much simpler time. That’s what gives the song its charm. It isn’t furious or bitter. It’s a wry, amused shrug from a young bloke who couldn’t believe how seriously some people took themselves.
The Debut With Two Broken Arms
Australian Crawl made one of the most memorable television debuts ever on Countdown, and it had nothing to do with the music. When the band performed “Beautiful People”, James Reyne stood at the microphone with both arms encased in plaster. He’d been hit by a car on Swanston Street in Melbourne, breaking bones in both wrists, and he wasn’t going to let a little thing like that interrupt his big break. The accident later became the subject of another Crawl song, “Indisposed”. The band also appeared in a mini documentary on Countdown called The Making of Beautiful People, in which Geoff Cox, who later hosted Coxy’s Big Break, walked viewers from the recording studio all the way to the pressing of the seven-inch single. Back then, that kind of exposure was gold. Countdown was how Australia met its new favourites, and the Crawl made sure nobody forgot them. It was clever promotion too, because audiences got to feel part of the song’s journey from a rough demo to a record in the shops.
A Video in a Crumbling Mansion
The film clip has its own story. It was shot in 1979 at Bellevue House in Glebe, Sydney, which at the time was dilapidated and covered in graffiti. Today it has been renovated and heritage listed, but back then it looked like a grand old home that had been left to rot. I rather like that, because it suits the song perfectly. A once-impressive mansion going to ruin is a lovely stage for a tune about people obsessed with impressive appearances. Whether or not anyone planned it that way, the contrast works. You’ve got a band of scruffy young blokes having a laugh in a place that was built for show, and the whole thing feels like a cheerful two-fingered salute to the fancy crowd. It’s a small detail, but it adds a lot of flavour to the picture. It also shows that the band understood the joke they were telling, and weren’t afraid to dress it up with a bit of visual mischief.
A Sound as Dry as a Sunburnt Country
Then there’s the way it sounds. At under three minutes, “Beautiful People” doesn’t muck around. It’s quick, bright and beautifully put together, with a hook that grabs you straight away. And then there’s James Reyne’s voice. He sings in a cool, conversational drawl that seems to roll out in an unmistakably Australian accent, which was refreshing at a time when plenty of local singers still sounded like they were from somewhere else. One writer observed that Australian Crawl boldly explored an Australian-ness that was unique at the time. I think that’s spot on. The humour is dry, the delivery is relaxed, and the whole package feels like a mate telling you a story at the pub. That easy confidence is exactly what a song about pretension needs. If Reyne had sung it with a sneer, it would have sounded like sour grapes. Instead he sounds like someone enjoying the show, and that’s far more convincing. You can’t mock showing off by showing off yourself.
A Success That Kept Growing
The single reached number 22 on the Australian chart, which was a fine start, but it was only the beginning. It appeared on the band’s debut album, The Boys Light Up, in 1980. That record climbed to number four and stayed on the charts for more than a hundred weeks, eventually selling over 280,000 copies. Over seven years, Australian Crawl sold more than a million records at home, and in 1996 they were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. Even now, “Beautiful People” remains one of their most popular songs, regularly voted among the favourites by radio listeners. Plenty of bands would have been thrilled with that sort of legacy. For a group that started out playing for beer money and a good time, it’s a remarkable result, and a lovely reminder that cheekiness can take you a long way. The band’s follow-up, the title track of that album, went on to become another staple, but this is where the whole adventure started.
Final Thoughts
“Beautiful People” is a sly, good-humoured poke at snobbery, written by a young man who spent his student days watching the wealthy put on a show. It gave Australian Crawl their first taste of success, gave James Reyne a Countdown debut nobody will ever forget, and gave the rest of us a tune that still sounds sharp today. The people it laughs at haven’t gone anywhere, which means the song hasn’t aged a day. Do yourself a favour and give it a spin the next time somebody at a party starts name-dropping. It’s a stone-cold classic, a cracking piece of Australian wit, and proof that you can make people laugh and dance in under three minutes.