Number 10 – The Angels/Missy Higgins – No Secrets

The Angels are one of the country’s unluckiest bands. They should’ve been fucking huge. The had the beat, the riffs, and most importantly in the gigantic presence of Doc Neeson, a peerless frontman. Those in the know loved them and many still do. And they’re responsible for one of the most Australian things of all time – a song with chorus half-written by its audience. Am I ever gonna see your face again? We all know the answer.

No way! Get fucked!! FUCK OFF!!!

I learned it when I was about ten. I remember gleefully sing-yelling it out at primary school discos. God, it felt naughty. Just brilliant fun. As such, you might wonder why it’s not the song I’ve picked to put into my top ten. Well, as much as I love it, and as much as it embodies that species of Australian rebellion that comes with a shark-toothed smile (think Barry Humphries’ shark in Finding Nemo), No Secrets goes deeper. It’s a stunning, stunning song that reveals the depths of Doc Neeson as a lyricist and human being, that not only offers a remarkably nuanced and empathetic perspective of womanhood and femininity – particularly as one might have found it in the rougher, less salubrious parts of Australia in 1980 – but also a glimpse into the kind of masculinity that the country once strode toward with greater confidence than the eroding toxicity of the burgeoning ‘manosphere’ currently allows.

The lyric is just wonderful. Neeson’s probably not near the top of many lists of great Australian songwriters, but he deserves to be. No Secrets is an ode to intimacy and vulnerability in a risk-laden world. The central figure, Amanda, is clearly aware of the risks that come with being a woman in a dangerously male world, because she’s ‘armed with defences/she learned from her mother and friends’. The valorised sisterhood’s power lies in its implied necessity, which is further enhanced by the line that rhymes with it; namely, that ‘when she’s in pain she pretends’. Showing weakness is a risky business.

Juxtaposed with this stoicism, this terrible dignity (to borrow from Steinbeck), is the transition from a public space to a private one. The late night and extinguished lights offer sanctuary. And because of the song’s 2nd person narrative, the listener is the person invited into Amanda’s inner world. The fact that the song’s writer is male valorises the intimacy at the song’s heart. Amanda isn’t a muse within the song, nor is she objectified. Instead, what the song does is to gift the listener the worthiness required to be the recipient of her affection.

The music is the work of Graham Leslie "Buzz" Bidstrup. The song’s melodicism is deceptive, in that due to the rather sparse instrumentation, the verses draw the listener in via the rhythmic chug that accompanies them, and which off a kind of aural portrait of life’s daily grind. But as the song shifts from the outside world to the darkened bedroom, chords both descend and ascend in a way that gently and enticingly builds tension, only for the chorus to stylistically contrast the verses through the repetition of short, staccato vocal phrases. These are skilful shifts in beat and metre, no doubt reflecting Bidstrup's drumming talents. There's something in that shifted beat that suggest a skipping heartbeat. No secrets might be kept, but something is; a smile for you. That's quite the special thing.

If you look at footage of The Angels – specifically at Doc Neeson – either in film clip or on stage – there is a quality to him both maniacal and magnetic. He's stares like a demon. That presence is well suited to songs like Take a Long Line, Dogs Are Talking or their brilliant cover of We’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place, but harder to associate with the more tender side of emotional honesty. Perhaps this is why the song took on a new life when it was covered by Missy Higgins.

Higgins has a warmly distinctive voice and is a highly accomplished songwriter in her own right. Her fourth album, however, was called ‘Oz’; an album on which she covered songs she loved by Australian artists she admired. Her version of ‘No Secrets’ is a revelation. Whereas the original bristled with a kind of prickly intensity, Higgins went straight for the song’s emotional core. The drums, bass and guitar are set aside in favour of piano, strings and layers of lush harmony, as well as a countermelody not previously present in the original. The chorus that Doc once near spluttered is transformed into sigh. In contrast with Higgins’ version, it feels as though Doc sang the song with his own guard up; after all, a bloke fronting a rock and roll band in 1980 could not afford to display any kind of quality that might suggest femininity. Unencumbered with such regrettable expectations, Higgins is able to reveal the truth at the heart of the song; in a cruel world, there is no greater gift than genuine intimacy.

An ‘Australian’ song? Absolutely. Pissy, blokey culture has long permeated Australian society. When that hairy little walnut (John Howard) was Prime Minister, he wanted to add a pointless ‘preamble’ to the Australian Constitution that enshrined the value of ‘mateship’ which he saw as integral to our collective identity. It seemed not to occur to him that it’s pretty rare for women to use the word ‘mate’ without some degree of irony. Few might have suspected that the lead singer from a band with an explosive image like The Angels would be the kind of mob who’d kick this rather straightjacketed gender stereotype down the road so far that when covered by a significant female artist 34 years later, it sounded as vital as it did beautiful. Sadly, Doc never got to hear her version. He died from a brain tumour just three months before her version was released.

Both versions of this song matter because when taken together, they enrich one another, and as a pair, they affirm the fragile yet powerful beauty at the song’s core. ‘No Secrets’ might not be most the well-known song by The Angels, but for me, it’s their most enduring. I’ll never tire of its lyrical acuity or its keening musical progressions. It’s a love song in reverse, a song that make people – most blokes, I’d wager – want to be special enough to a safe place for someone truly special.

Thanks, Doc. Thanks, Missy. Bloody great song.