Kookaburra sits in an old gum tree

from w
From the papers – fuss over a line in a kid’s song about a kookaburra.

Kookaburra sits in an old gum tree
merry merry king of the bush is he
laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra
gay your life must be.

The fuss is about copyright of a kid’s song, and a riff in the great song Down Under. There’s a tiny riff in Down Under that resembles the Oz kid’s song sung at numerous Scout campfires or when a family goes on a long drive in the car. There’s a kerfuffle about who owns the tune. Well, I thought it was a folk tune in the public domain but apparently it was written in about the 30s by a teacher for a jamboree who DID get it listed as copyrighted and Larrikin many years later bought the rights. What a fuss about one line of a song. It seems rather silly to me. The story is in Saturday’s Age newspaper but it has been an on-going saga. There's a website from several months ago discussing it and showing a small video.

Down Under|Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree| copyright |legal ...
25 Jun 2009 ... Did Men at Work's Down Under rip off the children's classic Kookaburra Sits in an Old Gumtree? Listen and see. ...
www.theage.com.au/.../riff-row-leaves-men-at-work-up-a-legal-gum-tree-20090625-cx5i.html

And the song Down Under is at YouTube -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNT7uZf7lew