"Hammerhead" is the second single 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 rock musician

James Reyne James Michael Nugent Reyne OAM (born 19 May 1957) is an Australian rock musician and singer-songwriter both in solo work and, until 1986, with the band Australian Crawl. Biography Early years Reyne was born in Lagos, Nigeria. His father, Ro ...

’s debut

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solo

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

, released in 1987. The track featured uncredited backing vocals by

Olivia Newton-John Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was a British-Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included 15 top-ten singles, including 5 number-one singles on the ...

. Reyne reflected on the song saying: ""Hammerhead" was not necessarily about me, but let's say I thought I knew what I was talking about. I wrote it with Simon Hussey; the music Simon and I wrote together and I wrote the lyrics. From memory it seemed to come quite easily. I shouldn't make too much about the fact that it's about drugs. It can be taken many ways. It was an exercise in trying to write a song about that subject but to also make it that it could be about a relationship. It's a song about a relationship. And whether that relationship is with a substance or a person, it's an obsessive relationship".

Track listings

; CD / Cassette Single # "Hammerhead" - 4:46 # "Coin in a Plate" - 4:14 ; 7" Promo Single # "Hammerhead" (7" Edit) - 4:19 # "Burning Wood" - 2:43

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

External links

References

1987 songs Capitol Records singles James Reyne songs Songs written by Simon Hussey Songs written by James Reyne {{1980s-song-stub