The Triffids: The Sense of a Place

Abstract

This article discusses the Australian band, the Triffids, who established a large cult following in Britain and across Western Europe in the 1980s. The article establishes the ways that the band's city of origin, Perth, Western Australia, permeates their lyrics. In doing this, this article contributes to recent discussions of popular music which seek to ground musical production in various ways in the specificity of place. It is commonly argued that the inhabitants of Perth have a view of the world born of the city's remoteness from the rest of Australia—it is the only major city on the west coast. In this article I go further and argue that, in addition, the city's proximity to the desert and also its overwhelmingly suburban built environment, and the worldview that is commonly associated with suburbia, also influence the ways the inhabitants of the city think about the world. I then argue that it is the attitudes founded in this background that permeate the band's lyrics, written by Dave McComb.