Bubbling Under: Split Enz- "Six Months In A Leaky Boat"

Welcome to Bubbling Under. Each week I cover a musical artist who charted outside Billboard’s Hot 100. This week: Split Enz.

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By 1982, New Zealand band Split Enz had broken through internationally with their biggest hit “I Got You”. The single, which was taken from their 1980 album True Colours, peaked at #53 on the Hot 100 and at #12 in the UK. They never topped this feat in either country. Canada, however, was another story.

Split Enz were no strangers to the Bubbling Under charts. The previous year, they’d peaked at #104 with “One Step Ahead” (#17 in Canada). Because the Finn brothers and their various musical projects have such a long, interesting history I won’t cover everything today.

“Six Months In A Leaky Boat” was the second single to be culled from 1982's Time And Tide album. It was the most popular of the three singles. In Canada, it hit #7. I’m not sure if the song still gets play here (sound off in the comments!) but at least twenty years ago it would pop up on radio and the video would appear on Much More Music periodically. It was a bonafide hit here, their last of three.

In the US, it fared worse, settling into a dismal #104, the same fate as “One Step Ahead”. I honestly don’t know what factors played into it not catching on. What I can tell you is that the song seemed set to be a second UK hit for them. Until it wasn’t.

In 1982, the UK had become involved with the Falklands conflict. The short war between Argentina and Britain over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands lasted 74 days and claimed roughly 900 lives.

Unfortunately, “Six Months In A Leaky Boat” was released in the UK during this time and for various reasons (including the title) found itself subject to a BBC ban.

Even though “Six Months In A Leaky Boat” had been recorded before the conflict happened, the single still fell off the charts and wound up stalling at a dismal #83.

I will mention that there’s parts of the song that are a bit long. The piano bit at the end is like nothing else that was a hit during this time period. The band had started out as an art rock group and it’s rather apparent here. Also, if you’re familiar with Hugh Padgham, the man who produced this track, you’ll know that he had previously worked with Phil Collins and XTC. Musically, it was a great fit for Split Enz.

I’m not sure if the more artistic flourishes are what kept the song from climbing higher. Aside from Canadian Content regulations, radio here isn’t really much different from radio across the border. So I doubt that had much to do with it. There was an edit released, which is what was used for this video that aired in Australia as part of The Paul Hogan Show:

Whatever the reason, the song wasn’t a huge international hit across the board that it should have been and it’s too bad. The band soldiered on and in North America, the album’s lead single “Dirty Creature” was the followup.

I get why this wasn’t another hit for them. There’s some potential with the Phil Collins-esque chorus, but it just sort of plods.

They had a much better follow-up elsewhere on the album and it was left under everyone’s noses everywhere but in New Zealand.

Until her death at 53 in 2008, American Sandy Allen had been on record as the world’s tallest woman. She appeared in movies and on TV. I remembered seeing her in a documentary from the 1990s called Sideshow: Alive On The Inside and found her to be a fascinating person. Apparently so did Neil Finn because he wrote a sing about her for this album called “Hello Sandy Allen”.

As I mentioned, the song was released as a single in their native New Zealand. I don’t know if it was considered for release elsewhere, but they did perform it on the popular Australian show Countdown and it was in their live repertoire.

In Australia where “Dirty Creature” had been the lead single, “Never Ceases To Amaze Me” was chosen instead as the followup.

I tend to prefer Neil Finn to his brother Tim, so maybe I’m biased in saying I can’t see this having been a huge hit either.

The band released two more albums after this: 1983’s Conflicting Emotions and 1984’s See Ya ‘Round. Their last internationaly released single was 1984’s “Message To My Girl” from the former album.

Honestly, I’ve always liked this song. Years ago, at one of my many retail gigs, the playlist containing “Message To My Girl”, wasn’t changed for a year and a half and I still didn’t become sick of the song. “Message” is more comparable to the stuff Neil Finn later recorded with Crowded House and if he’d saved it, maybe it would have been a bigger hit.

The band wound down after this. Tim Finn was becoming more interested in his solo career. I’ve been a little hard on the elder Finn brother in writing this piece, but will admit that “Growing Pains” from around this time is a song I do enjoy listening to. If this sounds familiar, you likely remember it from the scene in Sixteen Candles where Molly Ringwald cries at the dance.

Neil, of course, wound up in a little band called Crowded House and did quite well for himself. Because Crowded House had at least one Bubbling Under entry, I will likely revisit them in the future.

Tim Finn later joined Crowded House at one point. The brothers recorded twice as a duo. Once in the 90’s as Finn and later around 2004 as The Finn Brothers. As Finn, they had a UK hit with “Suffer Never”.

Crowded House most recently got back together in 2019 and are still performing in their current incarnation. Neil Finn also joined Fleetwood Mac in 2018 alongside former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell as one of two replacements for Lindsay Buckingham. There were plans to record together but this fell through with Chrisitne McVie’s death in 2022. A new Crowded House album Gravity Stairs was released this year alongside the catchy single “Oh Hi”. Tim Finn is still performing as a solo artist and had an album out as recently as three years ago.

Next Week: TBA