musicPeter Best

musical staging Eleanor Fazan

Peter Best had already cut his feature film teeth as a composer by working with feature film producer Phillip Adams on the low budget experimental 1970 drama Jack and Jill: a postscript, followed by the score for the first Bazza feature, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie.

While producer Phillip Adams didn't front for the sequel, producer Bruce Beresford maintained the relationship with Best.

Best went on to become one of the major contributors to the revival of screen music in Australia, with scores for films such as Muriel's Wedding, the first two Crocodile Dundees and Bliss. He has also had a successful career in the advertising game.

He has a short (at time of writing) wiki here, and should not be confused with the original drummer for The Beatles.

(Below: Peter Best - this photo is subject to confirmation)

There was no attempt with the sequel to spin off any merchandising of the soundtrack, as had been attempted with the first feature, but it has several numbers featuring Bazza's musical stylings.

After a cleric asks Kev about his book Coming of Age on Kangaroo Island, and Kev referring to the local UFO society as a bunch of

ratbags, and the cleric asks, what is a ratbag, Kev bursts into song to provide an answer:

A ratbag is a sheila or a bloke

(Ausse chorus of mates) … or a bloke

Who's kind of funny,But like, who never sees the joke ...

Now take me mother's brother, uncle GrahamHe's a raving bloody ratbag through and throughHe collects old kettles, makes his own wine out of metals (medals?)And he reckons that old Hitler was a JewHe's always seeing flying saucers landingBringing ratbags to the earth from outer spaceAnd he's written in his willThat when he dies we have to spillHis ash on Melbourne Cup day underneath the race

(Aussie chorus) … oh yes he is

Ah ratbag, a raving ratbag,He's a screwball, he's a nutcase, there's no doubtAnd if you think you're ratbag freeThen just shake your family treeSee the great big raving ratbags falling out

If you eat your sweet and sour pork with chopsticksWhen you're at home with no one 'round to seeIf you're a Filipino healer or think Shakespeare was a sheilaOr you tried to cure your warts with herbal teaIf you listen to the latest teenage guruOr you pin your faith on Scien … tol … ogyIf you grow organic food, go horse riding in the nudeThere's a very faintest chance that you could be

(Chorus joins in)

Could be … a ratbag … a raving ratbagYou're a screwball, you're a nutcase there's no doubtAnd if you think you're ratbag freeThen just shake your family treeSee the great big raving ratbag falling out

You're a ratbag if you turn on your alarm clock(chorus: tic toc)Though you know it never ever makes you wake(chorus: vite vite)You're a ratbag if you rise with a burst of exerciseOr count to forty every time you chew your steakYou're a ratbag if you live upon a communeOr you sail the seas alone upon a yacht

(chorus: ratbag, ratbag)

Rain (plain?) cold squatters, housewife potters, anonymous phonersSperm bank donors, Pakistani waiters, poofter liberatorsMisfits on an islandEveryone an islandAnd looking around this hallI'll ascertain out of us allThat there's just one bastard in hereWho is not ...

(Chorus: … who's not)

Ah ratbags, ah raving ratbags A screwball, a nutcase there's no doubtAnd if you think you're ratbag freeThen just shake your family treeSee the great big raving ratbags falling out

(repeat, with chorus)Ah ratbags, raving ratbagsYou're a screwball, you're a nutcase there's no doubtAnd if you think you're ratbag freeThen just shake your family tree

See the great big raving ratbagsRaving raving ratbagsRaving raving ratbagsFalling ooooouuuuttt …

(Below: Bazza and team sing the ratbag song)

In his second outing, Bazza indulges in some musical repartee, boasting how he's proud of Australia, the greatest little humdinger country in the world, and confronted by upstart Poms, decides to teach them a musical lesson:

(At first poetic)You poor Poms don't know what you're missingBeaut sandy beachesLovely juicy steaksBig shiny carsMillions of drive-in bottle shopsAnd decent church-going buggers all over the placeAnd lots of gorgeous beautiful clean-living sheilaswho root like rattlesnakes

(The Poms wouldn't know their bums from a hole in the ground)

(Then musical)Australians are noted for their wit

We're famed for our reparteeAnd when we meet a stuck-up BritWe give him a sample free

When a whingeing Pommy comes the raw prawnAnd gives our ears a bashWe turn on him with a look of scornAnd we tell him quick as a flash

Oh I hope all your chooks turn to emusKick your dunny down flat to the grassI hope your balls turn to bicycle wheelsAnd back pedal up your arse

I hope every lah-di-dah Pommy like youGets frogs (?) when he swallows a plumGo and dip your left eye in hot cocky shitAnd stick your head up a dead bear's bum

One day I met a migrant PomAnd bought the poor cow a drinkWell the way the bastard was carrying onYou'd reckon his poop didn't stink

I've kept the edge (?), this poofter saidThe Brits could lick us at cricketAnd I showed him the rough end of a pineappleAnd I told him where he could stick it

(chorus)I said,I hope all your chooks turn to emusKick your dunny down flat to the grassI hope your balls turn to bicycle wheelsAnd back pedal up your arse

I hope every lah-di-dah Pommy like youGets frogs when he swallows a plumGo and dip your left eye in hot cocky shit

And stick your head up a dead bear's bum

Now Australians' power of eloquenceIs part of our national gloryYou just have to listen to parliamentTo cop our orrratorrryOur politicians' wit is quickHis voice is grit in CanberrahhSo one of these days, I won't be amazedTo hear this speech in Canberrahh

(chorus)Oh I hope all your chooks turn to emusKick your dunny down flat to the grassI hope your balls turn to bicycle wheelsAnd back pedal up your arse

I hope the right honourable member Will permit me to give him the DrumGo and dip your left eye in hot cocky shitGo and dip your left eye in hot cocky shitGo and dip your left eye in hot cocky shitAnd stick your head up a dead bear's buuuuummm …

(Below: Bazza and team sing the hot cocky shit, dead bear's bum song)

Barry Crocker did release an album, Barry McKenzie's Party Songs:

LP Festival FL-34733 1972

On the DVD commentary track for Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, Crocker claims that he spent $2,000 of his own money putting the album together over a couple of days, later refunded by the record company. He also seems to suggest that the album contained all the Barry McKenzie songs, but it doesn't any from the second film, instead featuring the One-eyed Trouser Snake from the first film. This is hardly surprising if the usual date for the album - 1972 - is true. One online listing of the album's contents provides these details: