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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Sport
Naaman Zhou

#bigbigsound: GWS Giants' song gets meme treatment ahead of AFL grand final

Greater Western Sydney Giants players sing the song in the rooms after beating Collingwood to reach their first AFL grand final
The Greater Western Sydney Giants’ song, There’s a Big Big Sound, is trending after becoming the latest meme on Twitter. Photograph: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

If you follow AFL and have been on Twitter recently, you may have heard talk about some kind of “big, big sound”.

Of course the blaring brass, pounding tuba bassline and precise location of the sound will be familiar to the fans of the Greater Western Sydney Giants – the underdog expansion team about to play its first grand final.

But among neutrals, rivals and Richmond-opposers alike, the highly unique strains of ‘There’s a Big Big Sound’ have become the latest meme ahead of Saturday’s decider against the Tigers.

Described by the Guardian in 2017 as “a Cossack inspired heel-kicker, brimming with bravado and preposterous enough to work”, its originality and slightly hilarious lyrics have made it a cult favourite.

It began with a few accounts – many of them ironic supporters of rival teams.

By Thursday it was trending at the top of Australian Twitter, powered by the super-fuel that is Simpsons memes combined with intra-Victorian rivalry.

The song’s composer, Harry Angus of band The Cat Empire, told the Sydney Morning Herald he was delighted to hear his “old-fashioned music…enter into the mainstream of Australian culture in a way that I’ll probably never do with my actual hit songs”.

Most other AFL club songs are based on existing melodies from other sporting teams (Sydney Swans and the University of Notre Dame’s Victory March), or national anthems (Brisbane and La Marseillaise) or old standards (St Kilda and When the Saints Go Marching In).

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