Margaret Urlich needs to perform ‘The Horses’ with Daryl Braithwaite at this year’s ARIAs

This year, Daryl Braithwaite will be inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame, and he will no doubt celebrate this honour with a live performance of what has recently become his flagship tune, ‘The Horses’. No doubt the organisers have made this a stipulation.

Braithwaite is being inducted for the second time, following his band Sherbet’s 1990 entry, and it’s safe to say that if it wasn’t for his recent unlikely (but very welcome) career renaissance — based on ‘The Horses’ catching fire with a younger audience well-versed in meme culture — this wouldn’t be happening.

Now, I’m a fan of Braithwaite. I like that he is the voice of two bonafide Aussie summer classics: ‘One Summer’ and ‘Summer Love’. I like that when Sherbet guest-hosted Countdown in 1974 he wore a beanie, smoked on live TV, and drank. I like that after shooting the clip for ‘The Horses’ he got a lift to his gig at St George’s Leagues Club from the helicopter used for the aerial shots. I like that he looks a bit like Mark Trevorrow, who plays Bob Downe.

But as a solo artist, he had a #1 single in 1973 — at the height of his Sherbet success — and two successful albums, Edge and Rise, in 1988 and 1990, which spawned a top ten single each, ‘One Summer’ (#8) and ‘The Horses’ (#1).

It’s a solid solo career, but you could argue that Peter Andre enjoyed a comparable level of success during the early ’90s, and succeeded internationally too. I can’t imagine we’ll be seeing Pete inducted anytime soon. Remember, Braithwaite has already been inducted for the massive success he had with Sherbet. This is purely for his solo career.

Again, I’m a Braithwaite fan, and it’s rather silly arguing the merits of something as arbitrary as a Hall Of Fame. I also understand there is a lot more to a successful, lasting musical career than album sales. But my point is that he is being inducted largely due to the resurrected success of a cover song he released 26 years ago.

Which is fine.

But as the prominent female vocalist on the track, Margaret Urlich is a key component of the song’s success, and therefore should be on stage with Daryl, singing her vocal parts.

This is Margaret Urlich.

She had a number of big hits in 1989 and 1990, plus sung on the excellent single ‘Baby Baby by Ratcat.

As mentioned, she sings the female vocals on ‘The Horses’, and due to a scheduling conflict that saw her unable to appear in the video, she has been somewhat erased from history.

This is model Gillian Bailey.

You may know her as the girl from ‘The Horses’ clip; a generation of people probably just assume she sung the female vocals she mimed.

Let me stress that Urlich pulled out of shooting the clip at the last minute due to recording conflicts in America. Last year, she said of the choice: “In retrospect, it was probably a little bit silly because the song was so huge. But at the time I was young and a bit stupid, I did what I thought was right. But it was absolutely no disrespect to Daryl.”

Considering this performance will be custom-designed for maximum meme impact, what better way for Margaret to correct things, and reinstate herself into this important piece of musical history than to join Daryl on stage?

It would be a great TV moment. Maybe the exposure would push her number one ‘Number One‘ to number one again.

That the way it’s gotta be.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.