Throw Your Arms Around Me is one of the most well-recognised contemporary love ballads in Australia. A swell of pride and love for my native country and its music envelops me when I hear this. Not just that, but it’s hard not to be introspective as well when Mark Seymour sings “So shed your skin and let’s get started” – a line that elicits memories so thick of being in the throes of passion. It’s so barebones and direct, yet at the same time delicate and beautiful. Even Mark said the song came from a place of emotional honesty, and you can hear that – there’s nothing dressed up, nothing forced.
As already alluded to, the lyrics conjure stirrings of a fleeting yet intense sexual encounter – “You will make me call your name and I’ll shout it to the blue summer sky”– and the narrator can’t get the images out of his head despite the briefness of the occasion. It will always sit somewhere in the memory, whether tied to a summer, a bedroom, a goodbye. And yes, they must say their goodbyes. And that’s how it is: it cannot come back together again. It’s terrible to find out later in life that when people walk away, they do so forever.
Hunters & Collectors first released the track in their 1980’s during a period where the band was refining that big, earthy pub-rock sound into something leaner and more intimate. The version most Australians know of Throw Your Arms Around Me is the 1990 re-recording, cleaner and more direct (see music video below), which helped cement the song as a staple of late-night radio and just about every acoustic gig in the country.
Mark Seymour described the writing of it:
I was in a relationship with a woman I was very much in love with and she was the inspiration. I wrote virtually all the lyrics on Human Frailty about my relationship with her…Throw Your Arms Around Me was the first song I wrote that wasn’t angry. And because it was so out of the square, we didn’t record it particularly well…One time, we played it at The Palace, to about 2,000 people who just went off. We finally got it right, so we recorded it again. I think we did about four versions of it.
In January 2018, as part of Triple M’s “Ozzest 100”, the ‘most Australian’ songs of all time’, “Throw Your Arms Around Me” was ranked number 19. In 2025, the song placed 25 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of Australian Songs. Crowded House picked it up in their live sets; Pearl Jam covered it more than once.
[Verse 1]
I will come for you at night time
I will raise you from your sleep
I will kiss you in four places
As I go running along your street
I will squeeze the life out of you
You will make me laugh and make me cry
We will never forget it
You will make me call your name and I’ll shout it to the blue summer sky
[Chorus]
We may never meet again
So shed your skin and lets get started
And you will throw your arms around me
You will throw your arms around me
[Verse 2]
I dreamed of you at night time
And I watched you in your sleep
I met you in high places
I touched your head and touched your feet
So if you disappear out of view
You know, I will never say goodbye
Though I try to forget it
You will make me call your name and I’ll shout it to the blue summer sky
References:
1. Throw Your Arms Around Me – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
While the name “Hunters & Collectors” sounded vaguely familiar, the song didn’t ring a bell. I like it, though I think I prefer the original slightly less polished over the re-recorded version.
We differ on the best version, but at least you highlighted it—something I was remiss in not doing in the post – so I’ll do it below:
never heard this Matt, I like it!
It was huge in Australia, as I wrote. It’s interesting how much great music in Australia falls on deaf ears outside of the continent.