B-side’s not half bad either

A chap I work with shares with me an enduring affection for a classic Aussie track released in 1971, by the classic Aussie band, Healing Force.

Who, we figure, could listen to “Golden Miles” and not be moved in the pit of their stomach? Indeed, who could hear the track and not feel a yearning to their very bowels?

It’s timeless, cross-generational appeal is evinced by the fact that Mic (yes, Mic, for there’s no ‘K’ in Michael) is a decade or so my junior, so would have been only 4 or 5 when it came out.

Last week as Mic and I were discussing said shared enduring affection, which we’re prone to do at least every few years or so, our attention turned to the fact that the single release of “Golden Miles” had a B-side, listed simply as “The Gully.”

What wonders, we wondered, could be lost to the music-buying public in that lost opus?

Well... after a bit of ferreting around the interwebs, it turns out it’s not lost at all.

For one thing, a copy of the original 7” single release is presently listed on eBay for a mere AU$67.89.

For another, it turns out that Healing Force is one of the few Aussie bands of that era whose entire recorded oeuvre is available on the iTunes music store.

Yep, that’s right... all 3 tracks!!

Healing Force were basically a one-hit-wonder who never actually recorded an LP album.

There’s “Golden Miles”/“The Gully,” plus an instrumental jam recorded live at Sunbury ’73, curiously titled “Erection.”

All good stuff, and at $1.69 per track you can ‘own’ the entire recorded works of Healing Force for around . . . umm . . . 5 bucks.

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