Arabic version: كتاب الأغاني الوطني يكرّم الموسيقى الأسترالية عبر الأجيال

According to ABC News, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and APRA AMCOS have launched the National Songbook to celebrate and preserve songs and songwriters that have shaped Australia’s cultural identity. Established for APRA AMCOS’s 100th anniversary and the NFSA’s 90th birthday, the collection will add Australian works each year for their artistic and cultural significance.

The inaugural 10 works span more than a century, from Waltzing Matilda, written by Andrew “Banjo” Paterson and Christina Macpherson and first recorded in 1927, to The Presets’ 2007 song My People. The group also includes Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning, Yothu Yindi’s Treaty, Helen Reddy and Ray Burton’s I Am Woman, Ruby Hunter’s Down City Streets, My Island Home, Friday On My Mind, The Necks’ soundtrack to The Boys, and Peter Sculthorpe’s Earth Cry.

NFSA chief curator Meagan Loader described the project as “a living collection of our unofficial national anthems”. She said it would preserve not only music but also the stories surrounding songs and their impact for future generations. The first selections were made by a panel of 10 experts, including music professionals, practitioners, APRA members, academics and journalists, led by APRA AMCOS chair Jenny Morris and NFSA chair Annette Shun Wah.

Loader said the National Songbook differs from the NFSA’s Sounds of Australia collection because it focuses on composition and music that reflects communities or moments in time, rather than specific recordings. The launch comes as the Australian music industry faces festival cancellations, venue closures, declining live attendance and difficulties for local music on charts and streaming services. A recent APRA AMCOS report found Australian music accounted for 8.4 per cent of local streaming.