"High Wire" is a song by the Australian group

Men at Work Men at Work are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1978 and best known for breakthrough hits such as " Down Under", "Who Can It Be Now?", " Be Good Johnny", " Overkill", and " It's a Mistake". Its founding member and frontman is C ...

. The song was written by Men at Work singer/guitarist

Colin Hay Colin James Hay (born 29 June 1953) is a Scottish-Australian musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He came to prominence as the lead vocalist and the sole continuous member of the band Men at Work, and later as a solo artist. Hay's music ha ...

and the recording was produced by Peter McIan. It was released in November 1983 as the fourth and final single from their album ''

Cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...

''. The song reached No. 89 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart and No. 23 on the US Rock Tracks chart. NOTE: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1974 until

ARIA In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...

created their own

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tab ...

in mid-1988. In 1992, Kent back calculated chart positions for 1970–1974.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

's Stephen Erlewine described it as a tight pop song.

Track listing

7" International version

# "High Wire" (Colin Hay) – 3:02 # "I'd Like To" (Live) (Ron Strykert)

12" Australian version

# "High Wire" (

) – 3:02 # "Fallin' Down" (Live) (

Jerry Speiser Jerry Harold Speiser (born 12 August 1953) is an Australian musician. He is best known as the drummer and a founding member of 1980s pop/ new wave group Men at Work, Note: n-lineversion established at White Room Electronic Publishing Pty Ltd i ...

, Johnathan Rees) # "I'd Like To" (Live) (

Ron Strykert Ronald Graham Strykert (born 18 August 1957) is an Australian musician. He is best known for playing lead guitar, co-founding and composing songs with the 1980s band Men at Work. Career Strykert co-founded Men at Work with Colin Hay as an aco ...

)

Personnel

Men at Work members *Greg Ham –

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

, backing vocal *

–

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

, lead vocal *John Rees – bass, backing vocal *Jerry Speiser – drums, backing vocal *Ron Strykert – guitar, backing vocal Production details *Producer – Peter McLan *Engineers – Peter McLan, Paul Ray **Assistant Engineer – David Price Art work *Photography – Greg Noakes *Artwork – Ron Strykert

Chart positions

References

1982 songs 1983 singles Men at Work songs Songs written by Colin Hay {{1980s-rock-song-stub