''Harpoon'' is a song by Australian

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

band

Jebediah Jebediah are an Australian alternative rock band formed in 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. They were formed by Chris Daymond on lead guitar, Bob Evans (musician), Kevin Mitchell (aka Bob Evans) on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, and Vanessa T ...

. It was released in June 1998 as the fourth and final single from the band's debut studio album,'' Slightly Odway'' and peaked at number 46 on the Australian

ARIA Singles Chart The ARIA Charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling songs and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA became the offici ...

. The single contains a cover version of "Harpoon" by

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-based band and label mates

Something for Kate Something for Kate are an Australian alternative rock band, which formed in 1994 with Paul Dempsey on lead vocals and guitar, and Clint Hyndman on drums. They were joined in 1998 by Stephanie Ashworth on bass guitar and backing vocals. The gro ...

. Jebediah's lead singer Kevin Mitchell was interviewed in May 2014 by

Richard Kingsmill Richard Kingsmill is an Australian radio announcer and music journalist. He worked for ABC radio station triple j from 1988 until his redundancy in December 2023, and was the station's longest-serving presenter. From 2017 he was group music d ...

on national youth broadcaster

Triple J Triple J is an Australian government-funded national radio station founded in 1975 as a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It aims to appeal to young listeners of alternative music, and plays far more Australian conten ...

, recalling: "He (

Paul Dempsey Paul Anthony Dempsey (born 25 May 1976) is an Australian musician. He is best known as the lead singer, guitarist and principal lyricist of rock group Something for Kate. Dempsey released his debut solo album, '' Everything Is True'', on 20 A ...

) got a few words wrong, but that's OK, I can understand! Actually, the first time I heard it was live, at Pushover. It was great. That's the first time we'd ever heard a band play one of our songs. It was such a buzz. And the fact that they did it so well was even cooler." The single also includes Jebediah's cover version of Something for Kate's track "Clint", which appeared on that band's 1996 EP '' ....The Answer to Both Your Questions''. Something for Kate included the Jebediah cover of "Clint" as the B-side on their 1998 single, "Roll Credit". Dempsey, Something for Kate's guitarist-singer-songwriter, explained to Kingsmill: "In true Jebediah style, it has a lot of energy and it's a lot poppier. I think it has more appeal than the original. When we listen to our version of it, it drags. It's muddy. And then you hear the Jebediah version and it automatically puts a smile on your face. It just picks you up. You could jump off stages to their version."

Music video

The "black-and-white" music video for "Harpoon" featured the animated artwork of an artist who used

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on paper. In the

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-produced

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''Jebediaries'', lead singer Kevin Mitchell explains that the artist based the animation on the single's cover art.

Reception

In a review on U-WIRE, Amanda Fazzone describes the song as "an

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentBrit poppy chorus ("like a harpoon in my heart"), hard to say whether its tongue-in-cheek or heart-on-sleeve. A brief gorgeous guitar melody saves the song, but Mitchell's voice becomes tedious until the song's culmination in a few broad acoustic brushstokes."

Triple J Hottest 100 placings

"Harpoon" appeared twice in the 1998 Triple J Hottest 100, a poll of listeners of the national radio station, with Jebediah's original listed at number 7 and

's cover version at number 85. It was the first time that two versions of the same song polled in the same Hottest 100 list. In June 2013 Triple J conducted a poll to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the

Hottest 100 The Triple J Hottest 100 is an annual music poll presented by the publicly-funded Australian youth radio station Triple J. Members of the public are invited to vote for their favourite Music of Australia, Australian and alternative music of th ...

's current format, with "Harpoon" listed at number 91 of the Hottest 100 of the Past 20 Years.

Track listing

Charts

References

{{Jebediah 1997 songs 1998 singles Jebediah songs