'Does the meaning mean a thing?' Johnny Young's hit songs of the 60s-70s

This article challenges the conventional narratives of Australian popular music history, recognising this as an element of a wider cultural history, using the songwriting career of Johnny Young in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In doing so it refers to the actual song content; ways in which songs and their performers were written about at the time they were released; and the way in which these works have subsequently been regarded and discussed in the conventional historical narrative. It also suggests that Young's own crafted persona, as well as the way he and pop music are typically regarded, have veiled the innovative and radical elements of some of his songs, not only the very well-known 'The real thing', but also hits such as, 'Smiley' and 'The star' .