"Down Under" was written by Colin Hay, who wrote the lyrics, and Ron Strykert, who wrote the music. It was recorded by the Australian rock band Men at Work, who first self-released it in 1980 as the B-side of their single "Keypunch Operator". The best-known version was released by Columbia on 2 November 1981 as the second single from the debut album Business as Usual. It reached number one in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United States it spent four non-consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1983 and sold over two million copies.
The flute riff is based partly on the Kookaburra song, written by Marion Sinclair in 1932. A 2010 court ruling found that the song infringed that copyright, and Larrikin Music was awarded royalties. In Australia the song is seen as patriotic and is jokingly regarded as an unofficial national anthem. APRA ranked it fourth in its Best Australian Songs 1926 to 2001, it was added to the Sounds of Australia registry in 2007, and Triple M named it the greatest song of all time in 2024. It served as the theme of the yacht Australia II during the 1983 America's Cup and was played at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
