Nature (song)
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"Nature" is a 1969 single by New Zealand band The Fourmyula. The song peaked at number one in the New Zealand singles chart in 1970, won the
APRA Silver Scroll The APRA Music Awards are several annual and two-yearly award ceremonies run in New Zealand by Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members. APRA hold the annual Silver ...
songwriting award the same year, and in 2001 was voted the top song in APRA New Zealand's
Top 100 New Zealand Songs of All Time The APRA Top 100 New Zealand Songs of All Time is a selection of New Zealand songs as voted in 2001 by members of the Australasian Performing Right Association. The top 30 of this selection was used to create the ''Nature's Best'' CD and the re ...
. "Nature" was notably covered in 1992 by New Zealand rock band
The Mutton Birds The Mutton Birds were a New Zealand rock music group formed in Auckland in 1991 by Ross Burge, David Long and Don McGlashan, with Alan Gregg joining a year later. Four of their albums reached the top 10 on the New Zealand Albums Chart ...
.


Background

"Nature" was written by 19-year-old Wayne Mason, the keyboard player of The Fourmyula. Mason describes the song was being written, "in an hour on the front porch of my mum’s house, looking out on a beautiful day with trees and stuff. Bees were buzzing and my heart was fluttering." The song was recorded in November 1969, along with other tracks that would make up the band's third album, ''Creation''. When recording the folk-inspired song, the band used autoharp and improvised percussion by hitting a wooden organ lid, the sole of a shoe and a box of matches, rather than using a full drum kit. Peter Dawkins, the song's producer, suggested the song be used as the band's next single, however Mason did not believe it would be successful. The single was released in December 1969. While touring England in early 1970, the group learned that "Nature" was now a number one single in New Zealand, with sales of around 17,000. The band never played the song live in the 1970s. As well as the live music amplification technology not suiting the acoustic instruments used in the song, The Fourmyula felt that New Zealand audiences were not ready to hear bands playing original music.


Awards

In 1970, as the writer of "Nature", Wayne Mason was awarded the
APRA Silver Scroll The APRA Music Awards are several annual and two-yearly award ceremonies run in New Zealand by Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members. APRA hold the annual Silver ...
, the prestigious award for excellence in New Zealand songwriting. In 2001 the song was voted by New Zealand members of
Australasian Performing Right Association APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwr ...
as the best New Zealand song of the 20th century. The song also appeared on the associated compilation CD ''
Nature's Best ''Nature's Best'' is a two-disc compilation album of thirty New Zealand popular music songs, selected by a panel as the top thirty New Zealand songs of all time. Selection The genesis of the idea was the 75th anniversary of the Australasian Pe ...
''.


Track listing

; 7" * "Nature" * "Home" (English version)


Charts


The Mutton Birds version

In 1992, "Nature" was covered by New Zealand rock band
The Mutton Birds The Mutton Birds were a New Zealand rock music group formed in Auckland in 1991 by Ross Burge, David Long and Don McGlashan, with Alan Gregg joining a year later. Four of their albums reached the top 10 on the New Zealand Albums Chart ...
. It was their second single and peaked at number four in the New Zealand singles chart. The song had a harder, more rock-focused sound than the original. The song won Single of the Year at the 1993 New Zealand music awards. The song featured backing vocals from
Jan Hellriegel Jan Hellriegel is a singer/songwriter based in Auckland, New Zealand. Her first recorded appearances were in Dunedin band Working With Walt in the mid-1980s when Jan studied at the University of Otago in Dunedin. She then formed all-woman ban ...
.


Awards

"Nature" won Single of the Year at the 1993 New Zealand music awards, with the music video nominated for Best VIdeo. At the same awards, The Mutton Birds' debut self-titled album won Album of the Year, with The Mutton Birds also winning Best Group.


Music video

The music video was directed by Fane Flaws, and was the first of six videos he was to make with The Mutton Birds. As well as being nominated for Best Video at the 1993 New Zealand Music Awards, it also won Best Music Video at the 1993 New Zealand Film & Television Awards. and was voted number 38 in the
New Zealand Film Archive The New Zealand Film Archive was established in 1981. On 1 August 2014 the archive was amalgamated with Sound Archives Ngā Taonga Kōrero and the Television New Zealand Archive to form Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. 2009 lost film recovery In earl ...
's list of the top 100 New Zealand music videos.


Charts

;Weekly charts ;Year-end charts


Track listing

; Cassette single (1992, New Zealand) * "Nature" - 3:39 * "Dominion Road" - 3:55 ; CD (1994, Australia) * "Nature " * "A Thing Well Made" (live) * "She's Like a City" (live)


Other versions

In 1999 singer
Margaret Urlich Margaret Mary Urlich (24 January 1965 – 22 August 2022) was a New Zealand singer who lived in Australia for most of her career. Urlich's 1989 debut solo album, ''Safety in Numbers'', won " Breakthrough Artist – Album" at the 1991 ARIA Awa ...
recorded a version of "Nature" for her album of covers of her favourite New Zealand pop songs, '' Second Nature''.


References


External links


Interview and live performance of "Nature" by The Fourmyula (YouTube)

The Mutton Birds "Nature" music video (NZ On Screen)
{{authority control 1969 singles 1992 singles APRA Award winners Number-one singles in New Zealand The Fourmyula songs The Mutton Birds songs 1969 songs