"Downhearted" is the third single released by Australian

surf rock Surf music (or surf rock, surf pop, or surf guitar) is a genre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Southern California. It was especially popular from 1958 to 1964 in two major forms. The first is instrumental su ...

band

Australian Crawl Australian Crawl (often called Aussie Crawl or The Crawl by fans) were an Australian rock band founded by James Reyne (lead vocals/piano/harmonica), Brad Robinson (rhythm guitar), Paul Williams (bass), Simon Binks (lead guitar) and David Re ...

from their debut album '' The Boys Light Up''. The song was written by Sean Higgins,

Guy McDonough Guy Gillis McDonough (17 October 1955 – 26 June 1984) was an Australian rock musician best known for rhythm guitar and singer-songwriter with the iconic band Australian Crawl. He provided rhythm guitar and lead vocals on two of their well-know ...

and Bill McDonough. All three songwriters had been bandmates in the Flatheads, but at the time only Bill McDonough was a member of Australian Crawl. It was produced by David Briggs. "Downhearted" was released in June 1980 and reached number 12 on the Australian Singles Chart in July 1980. NOTE: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1970 until

ARIA In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...

created their own

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent ta ...

in mid-1988. Different B-sides were released in different markets. Australian B-side was "Way I've Been" written by Australian Crawl member Brad Robinson and his father James Robinson. James Robinson was a Federal Arbitration Court Justice. Canadian B-side was "Indisposed" was co-written by the Robinsons with James Reyne and Bill McDonough. The song describes the car accident which resulted in Reyne breaking both wrists immediately before they recorded their first single "Beautiful People" (1979). The B-side for the UK release was "Letter From Zimbabwe" (Reyne).

Covers

"Downhearted" was covered by Dutch prog rock band

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and appeared on their 1982 album ''

Runaway Runaway, Runaways or Run Away may refer to: Engineering * Runaway reaction, a chemical reaction releasing more heat than what can be removed and becoming uncontrollable * Thermal runaway, self-increase of the reaction rate of an exothermic pro ...

'' with an added

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

to the song. Australian pop singer

John Farnham John Peter Farnham AO (born 1 July 1949) is a British born Australian singer. Farnham was a teen pop idol from 1967 until 1979, billed then as Johnny Farnham, but has since forged a career as an adult contemporary singer.McFarlane (1999). Enc ...

sang it on his 2005 covers album ''

I Remember When I Was Young ''I Remember When I Was Young'' (subtitled Songs from The Great Australian Songbook) is an album by Australian vocalist John Farnham, released on 6 November 2005. It consists of cover versions of songs written or recorded by prominent Australia ...

''.

Track listing

#"Downhearted" (Sean Higgins, Guy McDonough, Bill McDonough) – 3:09 #"Way I've Been" (Brad Robinson, James Robinson) – 2:17

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{authority control 1980 songs 1980 singles Australian Crawl songs EMI Records singles Songs written by Guy McDonough