Song · Men At Work
“It's A Mistake” by Men At Work
From the album Cargo (1983)
“It's A Mistake” by Men At Work appears on 3 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 1999 and 2003. It was first released in 1983 on the album Cargo. Its best result is #545 on the Fred XM Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (July 2002). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #3,475 alternative song of all time.
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Colin Hay wrote "It's a Mistake" for Men at Work's Cargo, and it went out as a single in June 1983 on Epic. It's a Cold War song sung from the middle of the chain of command: Hay plays an officer pressing the brass to find out whether his troops are headed into battle, while NATO and the Warsaw Pact stare each other down and nobody knows if the standoff ends with guns or with warheads. The anti-war message comes wrapped in the band's wry, springy pop, which only makes the dread land harder.
Peter McIan produced and engineered it, with John Rees on bass and Jerry Speiser on drums. In America it climbed to number 6 on the Hot 100, the band's fourth and last top-10 hit there, and they played it on Saturday Night Live that October.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 1442 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2000 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) | 2000 |
| 2002 | 545 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (July 2002) | 2002 |
| 2003 | 906 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003) | 2044 |
Also listed as: It's a Mistake.
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