"Girls on the Avenue" is a 1975 song from
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n singer-songwriter
Richard Clapton
Richard Clapton (born 18 May 1948) is an Australian singer-songwriter-guitarist and producer. His solo top 20 hits on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart are " Girls on the Avenue" (1975) and "I Am an Island" (1982). He reached the top&n ...
. Released as the first single from the
album of the same name, it reached number four on the Australian charts, Clapton's highest chart performance.
Details
Initially released as the B-side of "Travelling Down the Castlereagh", the song became a hit after it was first played on
Double J and then picked up by commercial radio.
Clapton said, "I remember at the time
Festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...
lapton's record labelthought "Girls on the Avenue" was absolute rubbish. Their comment was, 'We asked you to write a hit single. Where's the chorus? This is a pile of rubbish. It's just a myriad of ideas you've stuck together like a Frankenstein monster.'" The song took about half an hour to write.
Although the song was widely perceived to be about prostitutes, Clapton has stated it was actually about three girls who lived on The Avenue in Rose Bay, Sydney when he was living the next street over.
Clapton was happy for the misunderstanding to continue, saying, "My manager at the time simply said 'Sex sells. Let that urban myth keep festering out there and you'll sell a lot of records.' and I did."
Clapton later said that much of the money he received from the song was because of its inclusion on a 1975 compilation called ''Ripper''.
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
References
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Richard Clapton songs
1975 songs
Songs written by Richard Clapton