Cover Story: Reckless
Nov 08, 2025•54 min
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Episode description
In 1983, the Manly Ferry was making its way to circular quay and James Reyne was laying down Reckless (Don't Be So...) with his band, Australian Crawl, for their EP Semantics.
Since then, the song has had a permanent place in lists of great Australian songs, in no small part due to some very different covers. Some by Australian music royalty (from Paul Kelly to John Farnham), and some from further afield (Laura Mvula singing about Aussie landmarks in her Birmingham accent).
Andy's guests are University of Western Sydney musicologist John Encarnacao and ABC Classic's Vanessa Hughes.
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