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Music

A Suggested Playlist for Reclaim Australia

Jimmy Barnes and John Farnham have vetoed the use of their songs at Reclaim Australia rallies. Here are some possible replacements.

It's been a tough week for you Reclaim Australia fellas. First, Sharia Law was implemented across the country, then Jimmy Barnes and John Farnham objected to you using their music at your rallies simply because they object to your whole ethos.

This will make these events very difficult. Have you ever tried holding a quiet rally? They're very uninspiring. And if you're going to fight the scourge of Islamisation that is a REAL thing and NOT a completely imagined threat whose fires have been fanned by leaders keen to distract from more pertinent threats. Definitely not. Islamistication is coming, and we can't be expected to fight it off without a proper anthem to get the pulse going. So don't worry about "Khe San" and "You're The Voice": there are plenty more songs you can use.

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Allow me to suggest some:

"Down Under" Men At Work

Scottish expat Jimmy Barnes turned you down? No problem! There's always Scottish expat Colin Hay, who co-wrote this classic song with Ron Strykert. Hay comes from the UK and resettled in the USA, and there's nothing more Australian than that. Except, of course, for this song, which includes references to getting stoned, vomiting, and what I've long suspected is a gay Indian brothel in the last verse. Look, it's amazing this hasn't been made our national anthem.

Pros: Men At Work are probably so sick of lawsuits at this point, they won't bother with cease and desist if they don't like what you're selling.

Cons: The protagonist spends the entire song in other countries, trying to make them more like his home. This could work against you.

"True Blue" John Williamson

John Williamson's largely indecipherable lyrics have been scientifically proven to be the most Australian thing ever, beating out kangaroos, meat pies, endemic racism, forgetting the point of Anzac Day, and the continent of Australia itself. If you want to emphasise Australia's ideals, then there is no better phrase than True Blue: an indistinct, nebulous and imprecise term that can apply to anything you want it to. Just like the term "Australian".

Pros: Proves you're not racist by demonstrating appreciation of blue people.

Cons: Nobody's that Australian. Makes you think John Williamson is hiding something, right?

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"Great Southern Land" Icehouse

There's a slight menace to this melody, and one that could really help scare potential enemies off. No Sharia-implementin' jerk could hear this being sung by a crowd of angry flag-wavers and not be terrified, although it's possible the crowd of angry flag-wavers is doing most of the heavily lifting there. Either way, this Icehouse classic does what it says on the box.

Pros: The song opens with "Standing at the limit of an endless ocean, stranded like a runaway lost at sea". If that's not an explicit warning to asylum seekers, then I don't understand lyrics or their meanings.

Cons: Lyrics give our southern location away to terrorists. The whereabouts of Australia is an operational matter.

"Beds Are Burning" Midnight Oil

The Oils excel at rousing songs that get the blood pumping for a cause, and so long as you can ignore the fact that their causes are generally antithetical to your own, this could be the tune for you. But if you're worried about a cease and desist, we've got you covered: Liberal MP George Christensen attended a Reclaim Australia rally with no complaint from his party or Tony Abbott, and Labor has generally been going along with everything the Government says and does, and Midnight Oil singer Peter Garrett was a Labor MP, so… he can therefore do nothing but accept your inalienable right to use his song. And if you think that syllogism has stretched logic and reason to breaking point, remember that you hold rallies to stop Sharia Law from taking over Australia.

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Pros: Lyrics argue that Australia should belong to its real owners.

Cons: Lyrics argue that Australia should belong to its real owners.

"Hot Potato" The Wiggles

What do you want from a Reclaim Australia anthem? You want it to be Australian, have a catchy melody, and contain lyrics everyone can pick up easily. Boom. The Wiggles. Game over. But why Hot Potato? We thought hard about both your cause and the Wiggles back catalogue, and decided that Five Little Ducks was too simple, and Toot Toot Chuga Chuga Big Red Car was too complicated. Hot Potato exists in what astronomers call the "Goldilocks zone".

Pros: You can convincingly turn the boats around with a Captain Featherstone costume.

Cons: Pretty sure hot potatoes, cold spaghetti and mashed banana are all halal.

"Strawberry Kisses" Nikki Webster

If you want to demonstrate everything that's good and pure (white) about Australia, you can't go past this 2001 hit by one-time child star Nikki Webster, who was doing her best to capitalise on her Sydney Olympics fame. It might not be the rock anthem you've been looking for, but it's a hell of an earworm, and you could probably get the rights for a song. Sadly, that song would be "Strawberry Kisses", and using a song to pay for itself would to an inescapable loop of infinite recursion that could trap you for millennia.

Pros: Given your concerns over terrorism, you'll appreciate that "Strawberry Kisses" was praised as "not necessarily the worst thing to happen in 2001".

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Cons: Hidden meaning in lyrics suspected by ASIO to be radicalisation trigger.

"I Only Take What's Mine" Warwick Capper

Of all the Australian musicians who released a single in-between their professional football career and their attempt to find work as a pornographic actor, Warwick Capper still managed to be the worst. But I Only Take What's Mine just might be the song you've been looking for. After all, it does contains an important message about not taking what doesn't belong to you, AKA AUSTRALIA AND OUR WAY OF LIFE.

Pros: None.

Cons: Sharia law will seem pretty appealing to anyone who is subjected to more than twelve seconds of this.

Follow Lee on Twitter: @leezachariah