Smart phones, social media? In 1985 if you asked to borrow “A” phone? “Yea it’s hanging on the wall over there.” The social media I can do without and so can every human being.
Saw them as Flowers sing this at Cloudland Brisbane in 1981. Believe it or not, Flowers were supported by Simple Minds and the Divinyls and it cost me $6.45 to get in. Luckily I had a job in the fruit and vege section at Barry and Roberts Toombul to help me pay for a memorable night. Flowers, later to be Icehouse were brilliant.
Last minute of this song is perfect. They've got so much going on from 2:37 to 3:10, and yet it doesn't feel crowded at all. That's the genius of Icehouse -- multiple layers of different durations that disappear and reappear without stepping on each other, and that carry you through the transitions--which there are always plenty of. The "oooh" @3:06 has gradually morphed into an "ahhh" by 3:12. This kills me. It's just a little connecting device, but it gives the painting a different background. They really knew how to pack every inch of the suitcase.
I remember when this song debuted on MTV in 1981.. I had waited 3 hours... THREE HOURS for them to play it again so I would be able to try and record it from the Television... True story, just as the song finally came on MTV, my mother started a fight with me and turned off the TV.. GRRRR
There's a lot going on in this one, yeah. I always thought it sounded a bit like DEVO if they'd had their silly dialed back quite a bit, and peppered with the Cars-style synth.
I remember them as the 'Flowers' when I lived in Scarborough, WA - 1980. Swan beer, hard cider, City Beach and driving up West Coast Highway to the Sunday Session at the Scarborough Hotel. Fond memories of a simpler time. Flowers, Cold Chisel, Mondo Rock, Australian Crawl - super Aussie talent that much of the world is the poorer for never having been a part of that era.
Linda that’s great! We did the same in Queensland. Drinking xxxx driving down to the Gold Coast for the Sunday sesh at fisherman’s wharf. And I was born in Geraldton WA now live in Scarborough QLD
I got home found this on RUclips paired it to my tower system and turned the volume up, great song , great tune and great underrated Aussie band. I used to play this when I was 12 back in 82 and still play this song today ......... nothing comes close to 80’s rock period !!!
They aren't underrated!! They were inducted into the Australian music Hall of Fame, including winning multiple awards!! They certainly are not underrated! Maybe you're just not familiar with their history.
Was 13 when I heard this, I was amazed how brilliant they were, catchy lines and clever changes, and more energetic than Duran Duran, who were getting huge at that time.
In the 1980s there was a radio station in Donaldsonville, Louisiana (KSMI-FM) that regularly played the songs from the lower end of the Top 100 chart. Early Thompson Twins, OXO, Sparks, Roman Holliday, etc. They'd play this every now and then.
OMIGOD! MTV used to use some clips from this video in the bumpers for the Classic MTV show, which was their first attempt to mine 80's nostalgia, even before the decade was over! Wow!
John Erkman@ yes, this shout be popular of this type of rotoscope animation. Plus we can probably find the rare effects on after effects or adobe Photoshop idk.
So my 9 year old daughter and I (dad...me...) are making dinner. Suddenly this comes on and blasts through the stereo. We start to dance. Then it ramps "...BABEEEEEEE....WE CAN GET TOGETHER..."!!! We drop our inhibitions and dance like there's no tomorrow!!!!!!
I like your review and I am calling it Icehouse!(good beer too!) I saw it as flowers but I think it was the new name as well! I cross my fingers and should research further but too late..lol I captured the song and I will go make a lil visualizer video! Peace! I love this song for many many years!
Myopic Record executives with their hand in airplay pockets decided back then who got a shot not the masses. America missed out on a lot of great Antipidean bands because of it, the UK too an extent as well. I always used to think we were the lucky ones down here as we got everything lol
@ta2fiend Songs like this were hard to find on the radio -- especially in Iowa were I grew up! LOL But luckily I had KFMH out of Muscatine which played AWESOME stuff like this. :D
@adwatts1966 KFMH and KUNI in the day (OK KUNI in the night, as it played this kind of stuff after 8 pm)...this song sold me on the album. Also KFMH had the outdoor mic that came on whenever DJs were on air so that you could hear crickets or cicadas (weee-oo-ee-oo-ee) or lawn mowers or what ever might have been outside the studios at the time.
If I didn't know better, I would wonder whether 'The Cars' were playing this song. The sounds are very similar, but Icehouse adds an 80's new romantic feel to it.
This song, along with pretty much all Icehouse material is brilliant. Words cannot express - the work of a genius. I am very interested to learn where the audio on here was lifted from, as, to me it sounds different in the music and particularly the way Iva emphasizes words differently than the version I have of this, which in on White Heat and the '89 compilation "Great Southern Land"?
I've seen you commenting on a lot of aussie music videos that I have been listening to lol. I have a playlist in the making called "Australian Music", which you might be interested in checking out.
I remember KROQ -- Rock of the 80s (squawk!) My first introduction to New Wave. Why early Icehouse never took off in the States is a bit of a mystery, unless Americans weren't used to intelligent, unpredictable music that slowly gets under the skin and stays there. Not "fluffy" enough, maybe.
He looks a lot like Gary Numan in this video. Is "buckle my shoes" a euphemism in Aus? "Pick up my sticks"? No American songwriter would use those phrases, so to us it seems unusual. Very fun, catchy, hooky song, though.
This is the mellow version ... I believe there were two. This may have been the version for U.S Release ... this is NOT the version we heard on radio in Sydney in the early 80's ... the original is RAW by comparison and better version. What a shame, someone talked Iva into watering down the vibe ... not the same at all.
To pick a no. 1 song from a band with such a large extremely high quality catalogue.. Difficult indeed. My favorite though, just for the record is "Taking The Town".
i think in some cases it was a 2 way street, a lot of o/s bands toured australia with local supports, appeared on countdown and went clubbing. no one really claimed anyone was ripping the other off, it was all part of a unique scene and the talentless pretenders disappeared pretty fast. the flowers/ icehouse did some amazing work with SDC.
This is Icehouse the band formerly known as flowers pre 1980. They are brilliant and Iva is as talented as anyone out there. They owe their existence to no one!!!
36 years later I still love this song!
This is simply one of the greatest songs ever written. The first album was outstanding.
BE NICE! We can get together!
Remember this song when I was 18, great song....times were so much simpler back then, wish I could go back in time...
Smart phones, social media? In 1985 if you asked to borrow “A” phone? “Yea it’s hanging on the wall over there.” The social media I can do without and so can every human being.
Saw them as Flowers sing this at Cloudland Brisbane in 1981. Believe it or not, Flowers were supported by Simple Minds and the Divinyls and it cost me $6.45 to get in. Luckily I had a job in the fruit and vege section at Barry and Roberts Toombul to help me pay for a memorable night. Flowers, later to be Icehouse were brilliant.
I love this! I know of all these places,
Cloudland Brisbane, I saw Mental As Anything, with Rock Pile. About 1979. Great Venue.
I’m 48 and I still can’t get enough of them even 2018 , I was 11when I first heard this song back in 1981
Last minute of this song is perfect. They've got so much going on from 2:37 to 3:10, and yet it doesn't feel crowded at all. That's the genius of Icehouse -- multiple layers of different durations that disappear and reappear without stepping on each other, and that carry you through the transitions--which there are always plenty of. The "oooh" @3:06 has gradually morphed into an "ahhh" by 3:12. This kills me. It's just a little connecting device, but it gives the painting a different background. They really knew how to pack every inch of the suitcase.
I remember when this song debuted on MTV in 1981.. I had waited 3 hours... THREE HOURS for them to play it again so I would be able to try and record it from the Television... True story, just as the song finally came on MTV, my mother started a fight with me and turned off the TV.. GRRRR
Matt Curley Same for me...1981...then I bought the album. Still a great album
M.T.V. wasnt around in 1981 😊
MTV was around in 1981; that’s the year it debuted.
Oh OK ... I thought it debuted in Australia around 1986? With Richard Wilkins as host.
It first aired in the U.S. in 1981 on pay TV but I may be wrong 😊
the combination of the hypnotic trance synthesizer mixed with the uplifting drum beat combine to make a high energy masterpiece.
Very nice ice groove, open, loose, tight all at the same time?
Yes. Synth soundscape feels a bit Human League -- and this may have been out before the DARE album. So, that makes Flowers/Icehouse trendsetters...
There's a lot going on in this one, yeah. I always thought it sounded a bit like DEVO if they'd had their silly dialed back quite a bit, and peppered with the Cars-style synth.
The second half of the 80s was the best years of my life. The music was Devine
Been loving this Icehouse for 30 years!
i still have the original cassette
Do you still have a cassette player? Don't even tell me you've still got a Walkman.
as well as the record player and the vinyls..33's and 45 records yeah lol
JoeyClimax great..Join the CLUB
I remember them as the 'Flowers' when I lived in Scarborough, WA - 1980. Swan beer, hard cider, City Beach and driving up West Coast Highway to the Sunday Session at the Scarborough Hotel. Fond memories of a simpler time. Flowers, Cold Chisel, Mondo Rock, Australian Crawl - super Aussie talent that much of the world is the poorer for never having been a part of that era.
Linda that’s great! We did the same in Queensland. Drinking xxxx driving down to the Gold Coast for the Sunday sesh at fisherman’s wharf. And I was born in Geraldton WA now live in Scarborough QLD
Hung around down scarborough in the '80's eh.
I got home found this on RUclips paired it to my tower system and turned the volume up, great song , great tune and great underrated Aussie band. I used to play this when I was 12 back in 82 and still play this song today ......... nothing comes close to 80’s rock period !!!
Right on man
This group is so underrated - great song from a great era.
They aren't underrated!! They were inducted into the Australian music Hall of Fame, including winning multiple awards!! They certainly are not underrated! Maybe you're just not familiar with their history.
I just rediscovered this song with a little bit of my youth!! God I love this tune!!!!
incredibly underrated song that did well in australia but was a world beater
Can't understand how this song didn't kill it in the States!
Anthony McCaugherty
I loved it and I'm in the US.
Actually lots of us loved it in the US. Didn't get to see Icehouse until 1987 but loved them from 1979 onward
Anthony McCaugherty tired... millennial just DON'T GET IT. ...80"s was the best just do research. ..miss it Way soooo bad...
Very well done. Lost some zest. But still great.
Seriously one of my fave songs of all time!
I heard this on CD as a kid, one of my parent's old albums. It's so original and delicious to the ears. 2k17 ... it's aged well
Jack Miller same
I still fondly remember seeing these guys play a double billing with The Clash!! It was at Cloudland Ballroom in Brisbane in 198....
Peaked at No. 62 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981, their first U.S. hit single. Pretty good tune.
Was 13 when I heard this, I was amazed how brilliant they were, catchy lines and clever changes, and more energetic than Duran Duran, who were getting huge at that time.
One of my fave bands ever.
Best work of theirs. Perfect rhythm and melody.
In the 1980s there was a radio station in Donaldsonville, Louisiana (KSMI-FM) that regularly played the songs from the lower end of the Top 100 chart. Early Thompson Twins, OXO, Sparks, Roman Holliday, etc. They'd play this every now and then.
Such memories, one of the best songs ever. !
OMIGOD! MTV used to use some clips from this video in the bumpers for the Classic MTV show, which was their first attempt to mine 80's nostalgia, even before the decade was over! Wow!
THANK YOU!
They beat ah-Ha to the Rotoscoping bragging rights BY YEARS I've been saying for ages!
Ain't seen this since first couple years of MTV😎😎😎😎
John Erkman@ yes, this shout be popular of this type of rotoscope animation. Plus we can probably find the rare effects on after effects or adobe Photoshop idk.
I just like talking to you.....icehouse my of my favorite 80s bands
So my 9 year old daughter and I (dad...me...) are making dinner. Suddenly this comes on and blasts through the stereo. We start to dance. Then it ramps "...BABEEEEEEE....WE CAN GET TOGETHER..."!!! We drop our inhibitions and dance like there's no tomorrow!!!!!!
Goose Bumps!
Take me back in time please.
First saw them in the Manlyvale Hotel in Sydney as The Flowers. No I'm going to see them in Whitianga NZ, 2025
In Australia, this was the second Flowers single. The first was Can't Help Myself - I still have the limited edition 10" vinyl.
I like your review and I am calling it Icehouse!(good beer too!) I saw it as flowers but I think it was the new name as well! I cross my fingers and should research further but too late..lol I captured the song and I will go make a lil visualizer video! Peace! I love this song for many many years!
How the hell was this not a #1 single?
Myopic Record executives with their hand in airplay pockets decided back then who got a shot not the masses. America missed out on a lot of great Antipidean bands because of it, the UK too an extent as well. I always used to think we were the lucky ones down here as we got everything lol
Great song 🎹 unbeatable!
Thanks! Salute maestro! Cheers! Great tuna Orca LOVESS!
Can't even explain how much I love the intro riff
"Bleed for this" helped me discover this wonderful band
Love how this song builds.
brings back the day when i didn't have care in world
2019, i remember 1984, im an old f***, age just a number
I'm 26 and I love this song. Age is a number, and good music is good music.
A lot of us do mate. Good times!!!
Icehouse is cool.
Same
Still love it...and flowers
one of the better early videos on Mtv.....
TRUE!
Rotoscoping WAY before ah-Ha did!
Way edgier too!
love this track...
@ta2fiend Songs like this were hard to find on the radio -- especially in Iowa were I grew up! LOL But luckily I had KFMH out of Muscatine which played AWESOME stuff like this. :D
2025 , and it still rocks!
The vocals were re-recorded for the US/UK release.
NO!!!!! Really???
Thank you.
Thought it sounded a bit European
My favourite group
@adwatts1966 KFMH and KUNI in the day (OK KUNI in the night, as it played this kind of stuff after 8 pm)...this song sold me on the album. Also KFMH had the outdoor mic that came on whenever DJs were on air so that you could hear crickets or cicadas (weee-oo-ee-oo-ee) or lawn mowers or what ever might have been outside the studios at the time.
Great song!
If I didn't know better, I would wonder whether 'The Cars' were playing this song. The sounds are very similar, but Icehouse adds an 80's new romantic feel to it.
Pleasant title, We can get together, but Hey little girl was their international debut.
The music videos is Take on Me’s unknown older brother
Still the perfect nu wave synth pop tune. Still sounds awesome.
Uuaaauuuuuuuuuuuuu ... showwwww ... goooooodddd ...
Must be something we can talk about - great lyric
Iva Davies was so cute back then :3
This song, along with pretty much all Icehouse material is brilliant. Words cannot express - the work of a genius. I am very interested to learn where the audio on here was lifted from, as, to me it sounds different in the music and particularly the way Iva emphasizes words differently than the version I have of this, which in on White Heat and the '89 compilation "Great Southern Land"?
I've seen you commenting on a lot of aussie music videos that I have been listening to lol. I have a playlist in the making called "Australian Music", which you might be interested in checking out.
We Can Get Together !!..
Just make sure that You dont Get more POPULAR than THE MOB on Connecting Singlets Blogs,or Your For It !!!....
Saw them there sometime in 1981
It's difficult to believe that Iva Davies is only 25 years of age here.
Bloody Australia hey. Gee's we ( Australia) have churned out some hot shit stuff.
certainly have and Icehouse are a legend of a band untouchable
I remember KROQ -- Rock of the 80s (squawk!) My first introduction to New Wave. Why early Icehouse never took off in the States is a bit of a mystery, unless Americans weren't used to intelligent, unpredictable music that slowly gets under the skin and stays there. Not "fluffy" enough, maybe.
KROQ, Kevin & Bean ! haha ... they sent me to Spain for the 1992 Olympics., funded by Coca Cola.
Icehouse is great
Combo David Bowie / Gary Numan actions with the singer...great song though :)
Love this song. Also love how the Dave Smith Prophet 5 analog Synthesiser wavers in and out of tune.
we can get together, hopefully before its too late
Wow...
@TheChuckk This is the version for America which IMHO sounds better. The video actually had the American version at least on MTV.
I have the original. This is best song by far man.
He looks a lot like Gary Numan in this video. Is "buckle my shoes" a euphemism in Aus? "Pick up my sticks"? No American songwriter would use those phrases, so to us it seems unusual. Very fun, catchy, hooky song, though.
With Sequential Circuits in the mix Its gotta be good
Don't know why Icehouse was credited with this song, its an old song written in the 1920s, seems to happen a lot these days.
Together Again !!..
After reading a couple of things there !! I want to know if GD Jethro and wenever are Related ???....
WE CAN GET TOGETHER!
The good old days
Yes it was definitely the good old days. If only we could go back !
This is the mellow version ... I believe there were two. This may have been the version for U.S Release ... this is NOT the version we heard on radio in Sydney in the early 80's ... the original is RAW by comparison and better version. What a shame, someone talked Iva into watering down the vibe ... not the same at all.
That was the Flowers version
Iva Davies = Australia's David Bowie / Brian Eno
Their best song.
I would vote "hey little girl" as their best, but this song (to me) is a close, close second.
I'd vote "Can't help myself" as their best, with those "We can get together" 2nd, and "hey little girl" 3rd.
To pick a no. 1 song from a band with such a large extremely high quality catalogue.. Difficult indeed. My favorite though, just for the record is "Taking The Town".
Does anyone know how they did the visual effects in this video?
Was the video made a bit later? because they were still Flowers at this point weren't they?
+David Bull This song was released in 1980 with a different video...
Wow
Icehouse!....lol...that's the name I'm going with!
We can get together .... I just like talking to you ... you can knock on my door
From a distance, the lead singer looks like Norman Bates.
Australia's best band
Better than The Wiggles?
by far
very influenced by Gary Numan and Ultravox it seems, the Bowie and Roxy Music is not that evident but there is enought of them
i think in some cases it was a 2 way street, a lot of o/s bands toured australia with local supports, appeared on countdown and went clubbing. no one really claimed anyone was ripping the other off, it was all part of a unique scene and the talentless pretenders disappeared pretty fast. the flowers/ icehouse did some amazing work with SDC.
Joy Division too?
I was hearing something familiar, but until reading this I couldn't get it. Definitely a bit of John Foxx in there.
This is Icehouse the band formerly known as flowers pre 1980. They are brilliant and Iva is as talented as anyone out there. They owe their existence to no one!!!
Wasn't that Flowers, and not Icehouse?
Yeah they rerorded it in 81
Plus I bought a couple of Icehouse albums ..so ...wth?)))
Icehouse - suburb of Western Sydney - hehehehe
I’m impatient
Alice Wonderland wats that got to do wit anything XD
I love this song and it's because of FOZZY BEAR BAND, vocalist Dave smashes it. I'll try and load it on my Instagram: makeitasha
FLOWERS1
And people scoffed when I said Iva was trying to look like Gary Numan. :-D
old macromedia flash hey
America and UK, my bad.
'Aaah...ooooh!'.... who came up with that stupid idea?
A wolf?
Very goo point. Dogs are smart. :)
I love ya Karen..
looks like bryce martin