Billie Eilish Isn’t The Only Artist To Sample Sydney’s Pedestrian Crossing Sound
Our distinctive crosswalk sound has been something of a meme for a while now.
This week, Billie Eilish caused something of a stir when it came to light that her Hottest 100-topping hit ‘Bad Guy’ samples that Sydney institution — the pedestrian crossing sound.
Yep, Eilish and her brother, the musician Finneas O’Connell, buried the noise under layers of pop hooks, having fallen in love with it on one of their first trips to Sydney. But, as it happens, Eilish isn’t the first musician to ever become deeply enamoured with our distinctive crosswalk buzz. For years, musicians have played around with the frantic, trilling sound.
In fact, it’s almost become something of a meme in certain corners of the EDM world. Some musicians bury it under layers of reverb, like Eilish. Others just go ham, and stick the thing right in the centre of their song.
To that end, here’s some of the most famous tunes to ever take the noise and make it art.
Orbital — ‘Walk Now’
One of the first times that the crosswalk sound cropped up in pop music was on Orbital’s self-titled debut, way back in 1993. There it sits, slap bang in the middle of the song ‘Walk Now’ (geddit?)
It was a while until we got official confirmation that the sound came from Sydney — for a while, the Irish were trying to claim it as their own. But then, back in 2017, Orbital band member Paul Hartnoll confirmed the noise’s origin as part of an AMA on GearSlutz.
“It’s the sound of an Australian pedestrian crossing,” Hartnoll wrote. “Well, a Sydney one anyway. I noticed they are a bit more mechanical sounding in Melbourne…We went there to play an illegal rave over New Year’s Eve ’91 / ’92.”
Giuseppe Ottaviani — ‘Crossing Lights’
The most transparent use of the crosswalk sound comes to us via Giuseppe Ottaviani, an Italian producer who crafted a whole song around the distinctive beat. Unlike Orbital or Eilish, Ottaviani lets the sound do much of the heavy lifting — it’s the breakdown, preserved intact. Consider it a love letter then, dedicated to the sheer beauty of Sydney’s roads.
Polish Club — ‘Iguana’
Sydney-based band Polish Club love the crosswalk sound so much that they decided to open their biggest album’s titular song with it. ‘Iguana’, one of their breakout hits, uses the beat as the backbone for the gleeful and arch rock that follows, opening with a tiny snippet and then constructing a banger around it.
Basement Jaxx — ‘Red Alert’
This one’s a little harder to confirm. There’s never been any official confirmation that the trilling beat at the start of Basement Jaxx’s ‘Red Alert’ was nabbed from Sydney’s crosswalks. But it sure sounds like it, and the band have become well-known for their frequent trips to our fair shores. Just gonna chalk this one up as a win for us, to be honest.
Joseph Earp is a staff writer at Junkee. He tweets @Joseph_O_Earp.