WHEN three Merewether teenagers, known as Silverchair, released their grunge anthem of teen angst in 1994 no one could have foreseen Tomorrow's popularity and longevity.
Every Novocastrian knows that iconic hook of "You gonna wait too, fat boy/ Fat boy, wait til tomorrow."
What's even more unexpected than Silverchair's initial success is the new Mandarin version of Tomorrow that appears om the soundtrack of SBS historical drama New Gold Mountain.
The four-part series, which premiered on Wednesday night, explores the Victorian Gold Rush of the 1850s from the perspective of Chinese miners.
The original soundtrack for New Gold Mountain was recorded by multi award-winning screen composer Caitlin Yeo and Sydney-based singer Cat Stratton. The album features a host of traditional Chinese compositions, but the re-imaging of Tomorrow is undoubtedly the stand-out moment.
"It's such an iconic song, and it's a song even my dad knows, which is testament to just how iconic it is," Stratton says.
"Translating the lyrics into Mandarin was certainly interesting. For example, 'fat boy' doesn't sing as well in Mandarin as it does in English and contextually just doesn't feel the same, so I had to take some artistic liberties with it and come up with lyrics that fit the narrative of the song.
"So, it was cool to rework it in that way. It was super fun to record."
Tomorrow's famous guitar riff is beautifully performed on steel string guitars and quqin, a plucked seven-string Chinese instrument.
"My approach for scoring New Gold Mountain was to find a sound world that explored the clash of cultures amidst the gold rush, from a Chinese perspective," Yeo says. "The music needed to imbue an off-kilter twist to the revisionist wild west whilst adding a sense of mystery to the show."
Most importantly, Tomorrow has been given the tick of approval by the song's co-writer and Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns.
"New Gold Mountain tells an incredible story and to have Cat and Robby reimagine Tomorrow in Mandarin is both inventive and inspiring - I love it," Johns says.
New Gold Mountainisout now.
