Fanatics

As Lleyton Hewitt limbers up for tonight’s showdown with Andy Roddick, The Punch has gone to the trouble of writing down the lyrics for our putative national song, so that any tennis enthusiast who’s recently been lobotomised can sing along with The Fanatics and not miss a single word.

It goes: Aussie Aussie Aussie. Oi Oi Oi. Aussie Aussie Aussie. Oi Oi Oi. Aussie. Oi. Aussie. Oi. Aussie Aussie Aussie. Oi Oi Oi.

It’s a ripper isn’t it? The result of more than two centuries’ development by a nation which inherited a rich tradition of song from the Celts, as demonstrated in the above video of the Irish crowd at Croke Park singing The Fields of Athenry.

There’s an Aussie tie-in with this stirring Irish song. It’s about a fellow who’s been jailed and sent to prison in Australia. The lyrics recount the last conversation he and his his wife will ever have, singing to each other across the prison wall before he’s put on the ship.

The story of Aussie Aussie Aussie is similarly powerful, in that it’s about an Aussie Aussie who Oi Oi Aussie Oi, Aussie Oi. I mean seriously - just how dumb are we as a nation? Or rather, how dumb do we like to pretend to be?

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