Belting out classics at stadiums while watching the cricket or at sweaty festivals is a summer pastime being memorialised in a pitch-perfect project.
Launched at Canberra's National Film and Sound Archive of Australia on Wednesday, the inaugural National Songbook celebrates a rich and diverse history of songs that have brought tears to some and pure joy to others.
The brainchild of the archive and the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), celebrating 100 years of representing the music industry, the first 10 songs inducted pay tribute to Australia's songwriting heritage.
From traditional bush ballad Waltzing Matilda, written by Banjo Paterson and first recorded in 1927, all the way through to The Presets' 2007 dance anthem My People, the songs helped shape Australia.
Marked by explosive trumpet-and-drum bursts, Midnight Oil's Beds are Burning, which brought a call for Aboriginal land rights to the airwaves in the lead-up to Australia’s 1988 bicentenary, topped the list.
The song took shape after the band toured central Australia, where songwriters Peter Garrett, Rob Hirst and Jim Moginie encountered First Nations communities and learned more about their experiences of displacement and inequality.
"It's a song that meant a great deal to us given we were entrusted in a way, an invitation, to write about First Nations issues," said Mr Garrett, the band's frontman turned Labor minister.
He explained the song was designed as a rousing anthem to make peace with the First Australians.
Another song carrying a political demand that made the songbook was Treaty sung by the late musician Mandawuy Yunupingu, who was the lead singer of Australia's pre-eminent Aboriginal band, Yothu Yindi.
Released in 1991, it also launched the career of his nephew Gurrumul Yunupingu who became a household name with the landmark song charting internationally peaking at number 6 on the US Billboard dance chart singles.
The songs carrying "heft and heart" will be housed in a permanent digital archive for future generations to engage with, the archive's chief curator Meagan Loader said.
"As Australia's audiovisual archive, the NFSA will ensure these songs and stories are preserved in our national collection of works of significant cultural heritage, heft and heart, providing a new way for Australians now and into the future to engage with the songs and songwriters who have shaped us," she said.
The 10 inaugural inductees were chosen by a panel of 10 industry experts including songwriters, composers, broadcasters, journalists and historians.
First 10 songs in Australia's National Songbook
* Beds Are Burning - Peter Garrett / Rob Hirst / Jim Moginie. Released: 1987
* Down City Streets - Ruby Hunter. Released: 1990
* Earth Cry - Composed by Peter Sculthorpe. Released: 1990
* Friday on My Mind - written by Harry Vanda and George Young. Released: 1966
* I Am Woman - written by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton. Released: 1971
* My Island Home - written by Neil Murray. Released: 1987 (Warumpi Band) 1995 (Christine Anu)
* My People - written by Julian Hamilton / Kim Moyes. Released: 2007
* The Boys - The Necks (Soundtrack) written by Chris Abrahams / Tony Buck / Lloyd Swanton. Released: 1998
* Treaty - written by Dr M. Yunupingu / Stuart Kellaway / Witiyana Marika / M. Mununggurr / Cal Williams / G. Yunupingu / Peter Garrett / Paul Kelly. Released: 1991
* Waltzing Matilda - lyrics by Andrew 'Banjo' Paterson. Melody by Christina Macpherson. Released: 1927
