On Australia Day, as barbecues flare around the Central West, one song will drift above all the rest. Its trilled flute riff is instantly recognisable, its chorus impossible not to shout, and its sentiment — sun-baked, surreal, slightly satirical — captures something that arguably feels more Australian than any official anthem ever could.

Yet that song 'Down Under' was not even written by an Australian.

When Colin Hay first set foot in Australia as a fourteen-year-old Scottish migrant, everything felt strange under his feet, he tells me. The land was “stark… arid… desert-like… mysterious,” he recalls — a shock for a boy from Glasgow, where even walking to a football match could feel like risking your life. In contrast, Australia seemed wide open, physically and spiritually. He watched teenage friends drive to the coast with nothing but a surfboard, sleep in their cars or on the beach, and call it a weekend. “They were free to me,” he says. “Compared to growing up in socially-entrenched Scotland.”

That sense of liberation, strangeness, and wry observation would years later form the bedrock of 'Down Under' — the song that became Australia’s unofficial national anthem, written by the kid from coastal Kilwinning who grew up seeing the culture with fresh, outsider eyes.

He was alway surrounded by music, his parents owning a music shop in Scotland. As a youngster, The Kinks blew him away. Hay’s understanding of songwriting deepened, influenced heavily by the Beatles — their melodies, their structures, and especially their middle eights. “They would just f---ing blow your mind,” he says with admiration. He believes absorbing that craft subconsciously shaped his own writing. “You’re singing their songs, and you become aware of what makes a song great.” The Lennon-McCartney dynamic was always in the back of his mind, then George Harrison started writing standout songs: “It’s almost impossible to get songwriters of that quality in the one band.”

In Australia, bands like The Easybeats, Seekers, and Skyhooks further influenced him.

But his band Men at Work never performed covers — the band was always about original songs, and a uniquely Australian-inflected sensibility.

'Down Under' was conceived in only 40 minutes. “But it had been in my consciousness for years,” Hay explains. “I was always wandering around thinking I’d like to write a song about Australia… what kind of song could I come up with?” And the result surprised him.

What he created was something very different from a patriotic singalong. He wanted a sound first — “a very stark, arid sound,” echoing that first impression of a dry, mysterious country. He credits producer Peter McIan for stripping back the clutter, and highlighting the hooks.

But lyrically it reflected something more complex: the unconsciousness he felt many Australians carried about the sheer miracle of this vast continent and their place within it. “People seemed unaware that they’re one of relatively few people wandering around this huge land,” he says. The song gently teased that swagger, but it also expressed profound affection. It was, in its essence, the kind of song only an outsider with deep love for the country could write.

It hit #1 in Australia in 1981. And then the explosion happened on an American tour in 1983, after Australia won the America’s Cup in Perth.

Hay describes the global explosion of 'Down Under' and Men at Work’s success with the disbelief of someone who lived through a whirlwind. “It was truly a phenomenon,” he says. “All the dots joined… all those little spot fires became heat. Things would happen on a Friday — ‘Oh, you’re going to do "Saturday Night Live".' Well, the song’s number three on Friday, and you do the show, and it’s number one on Monday.” Suddenly, the Scottish-Australian outsider was at the centre of the world’s biggest band.

Today Hay, 72, lives in Los Angeles as a US citizen, still recording prolifically. But perhaps he's still reminded of Australia when he was evacuated from his home in the monster bushfires last January. “Life moves on at a furious, furious, furious pace,” he tells me. But he watches Australia with a mixture of love and sadness. Returning recently to the southern Queensland coast, he was shaken by what he saw. “The development is hideous. Embarrassing. Extremely ugly. It makes me upset and sad.” He understands that growth is inevitable, but what pains him is the quality of that growth — “cheap and uninteresting,” he says, compared to the natural majesty he fell in love with as a teenager.

Yet through it all, 'Down Under' remains a source of pride. Many artists wrestle with the burden of a single career-defining hit, but Hay feels no resentment. “It lives inside me,” he says. “It’s part of your DNA. Part of who you are.” He puts it “up there with anything I’ve done,” — 'Who Can It Be Now,' 'It’s a Mistake', 'Overkill' and around 200 other recorded tracks — but without delusion about commercial expectations. “If you measure a song’s worth by its commercial success, you’ll go insane,” he says with a laugh. And while he’s optimistic he might yet write another hit of that magnitude, he’s realistic: “I’m not holding my breath.”

'Down Under''s afterlife has been extraordinary: over 55 recorded cover versions, from King Stingray’s Yolŋu-Matha bilingual reimagining, to Tones and I, to Luude’s drum-and-bass remake. “I’m less warm on that one,” he admits of the latter, “but I love the King Stingray one.”

Forty years on, 'Down Under' still circles the globe — in stadiums, movies, pubs, and Australia Day gatherings — a song created by a migrant who saw Australia clearly, lovingly, critically, and with eyes unclouded by nostalgia or nationalism.

Perhaps that is why it endures. It wasn’t written to wave a flag. It was written to understand a place — and in doing so, helped a nation understand itself.

Insta: @ColinHay colinhay.com.