"Tucker's Daughter" is the debut single by Australian rock singer and guitarist,

Ian Moss Ian Richard Moss (born 20 March 1955) is an Australian rock musician from Alice Springs. He is the founding mainstay guitarist and occasional singer of Cold Chisel. In that group's initial eleven year phase from 1973 to 1984, Moss was recorded ...

. It was released in November 1988 almost five years after his group,

Cold Chisel Cold Chisel are an Australian pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums and Don Walker on piano and keyboards. They were soon joined by Jimmy Barnes (at the ...

, had disbanded for the first time. It is co-written by Moss and Don Walker (also from Cold Chisel). Note: For additional work user may have to select 'Search again' and then 'Enter a title:' or 'Performer:'. The song was the lead single from Moss' debut studio album, ''

Matchbook A matchbook is a small paperboard folder (known as a matchcover) enclosing a quantity of matches and having a coarse striking surface on the exterior. The folder is opened to access the matches, which are attached in a comb-like arrangement a ...

'' (1989).

Reception

At the ARIA Music Awards of 1990 "Tucker's Daughter" was nominated for three awards and won two; Breakthrough Artist – Single and Song of the Year. The song was also nominated for Single of the Year. In January 2018, as part of

Triple M Triple M is an Australian commercial radio network owned and operated by Southern Cross Austereo. The network consists of 40 radio stations broadcasting a mainstream rock music format and 5 digital radio stations. The network dates back to ...

's "Ozzest 100", the 'most Australian' songs of all time, "Tucker's Daughter" was ranked number 99.

Background and lyrics

The lyrics of "Tucker's Daughter" tell the story of a farm laborer who finds himself the attention of his employer's daughter, but he does not return her affections. Moss had initially written the music to the song less than a fortnight before recording on his debut album was about to commence. He said, "I was pretty confident I had a good hit here. I was literally running around the house going 'yahoo!', jumping up and clicking my heels." Walker described in 2005 how Moss had sent him pieces of music including certain phrases that he wanted included in places within the song, "Ian sent "Tucker's Daughter" on a cassette yexpress airmail from

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where he was, and he had the melody but the only lyric he had was, 'Hey there, motherfucker.' Right through the rest of the song. I couldn't use that, but I recognized that it had a certain percussive force". In September 2007 Moss told a reporter at ''

The Herald Sun The ''Herald Sun'' is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the Murdoch owned News Corp. The ''Herald Sun ...

'' newspaper that he was dissatisfied with his entry at

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: "About 95 per cent of the stories I read say Don Walker wrote it, but I wrote it too. I wrote the music and the punch line. 'Build me up, tear me down'. I'm not sure how to edit Wikipedia, but I will get on to that and change it."

Music video

The start of the video depicts Tucker's daughter, a young woman, played by actress

Tasma Walton Tasma Walton (born 19 August 1973) is an Australian television and film actress. Acting career Walton joined local radio station 6GE and trained as a production assistant and copy writer in her home town. She was accepted into the National Ins ...

walking through a field. Several scenes feature Ian Moss singing and playing his guitar inside a barn. Although Moss does not react to the woman's affection in the lyrics; three black and white scenes during the video depict the two having a romantic encounter.

Track listing

7" Single (K690) *Side A "Tucker's Daughter" - 4:35 *Side B "Islands" - 4:42

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{ARIA Award for Breakthrough Artist 1988 songs 1988 singles ARIA Award-winning songs Songs written by Don Walker (musician)