We’re All Gonna Die Someday (1999) – Kasey Chambers

This is such a fun and cheeky song from my beloved Australian country artist Kasey Chambers. The lyrics are pretty outrageous and, to some, could be considered distasteful, but I find them humorous and playful, very much in keeping with the ‘dinky-di’ Australian outback spirit. I mean, if you’re going to sing about how we’re all going to die someday, you may as well have some fun with it and not beat around the bush.

It feels like a song I’ve been listening to most of my life; one of those songs that, as a kid, your parents might have been aghast to discover you were listening to. It’s certainly a long way removed from John Denver’s jolly and rollicking Grandma’s Feather Bed, which was probably more what we were accustomed to hearing back then.

I’d only been listening to Kasey since her breakthrough album Barricades & Brickwalls in 2002, which remains one of my all-time favourite Australian albums. I remember exactly when and where I first heard her hit song (Am I) Not Pretty Enough from that record, which I’ve recalled time and again in other posts about Kasey’s music and won’t repeat here.

We’re All Gonna Die Someday is the closing track on Kasey’s debut album The Captain, which won the ARIA Award for Best Country Album. The song was written by Kasey, her father Bill Chambers, and her roadie and lifelong best friend Worm Werchon. It borrows a little of the melody from The Ballad of Jed Clampett (The Beverly Hillbillies theme song), written by Paul Henning.

Before launching her solo career, Kasey had spent more than a decade performing with her family’s Dead Ringer Band, a popular Australian country music group. From 1976, the Chambers family travelled around the Nullarbor Plain for much of each year while her parents hunted foxes and rabbits for their pelts. Kasey’s childhood seems to have come straight from the pages of a country music songbook.

For more information about Kasey’s fascinating upbringing and career, I point you to the video – At home with country superstar Kasey Chambers | 60 Minutes Australia.

[Chorus]
We’re all gonna die someday, lord
We’re all gonna die someday
Mama’s on pills, daddy’s over the hill
But we’re all gonna die someday

[Verse 1]
Well it hurts down here on Earth, lord
It hurts down here on Earth
It hurts down here ’cause we’re running out of beer
But we’re all gonna die someday

[Chorus]
We’re all gonna die someday, lord
We’re all gonna die someday
Mama’s on pills, daddy’s over the hill
But we’re all gonna die someday

[Verse 2]
Well all of my friends are stoned, lord
All of my friends are stoned
Janie got stoned cause she couldn’t get boned
But we’re all gonna die someday

[Chorus]
We’re all gonna die someday, lord
We’re all gonna die someday
Mama’s on pills, daddy’s over the hill
But we’re all gonna die someday

[Verse 3]
Well they can all kiss my ass, lord
They can all kiss my ass
If they want to kiss my ass, well they better do it fast
‘Cause we’re all gonna die someday

[Chorus]
Yeah, we’re all gonna die someday, lord
We’re all gonna die someday
Mama’s on pills, daddy’s over the hill
But we’re all gonna die someday

[Chorus]
I said
We’re all gonna die someday, lord
We’re all gonna die someday
Mama’s on pills, daddy’s over the hill
But we’re all gonna die someday

References:
1. The Captain (album) – Wikipedia