The Thousands

Growing up I listened to a lot of Christian music, Enya, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Tina Arena and the Eurythmics all thanks to my dad’s ‘broad’ tastes. But the one artist he would play the most of all was little Johnny Farnham. My dad always liked to pretend he was a typical Aussie bloke much like Ray Martin or John Howard, and John Farnham was the music for the typical Aussie bloke, apparently.

For some reason as a child I decided that Farnham’s album Whispering Jack was recorded at the Whispering Wall. I assume because they both have the word ‘whispering’ in their name.  I was so convinced of this in my head that whenever we went out there I used to wonder where Johnny set up his guitars and where on earth they fit a drum kit on that thing.

The wall itself is essentially a dam. Why it’s there, what the purpose of it is, has been lost in the mists of time. Nobody knows…OR maybe I couldnt be bothered looking it up. It apparently wasn’t just made to have fun with sound, but if you whisper at one end, it can be heard 100 metres away at the other, and some say if you stand on one end and whisper down the wall asking ‘how does it all work?’ you will hear in reply from Johnny boy himself ‘because you were the wind beneath my wings’.