The National Anthems

Celebrants at the Silver Scrolls, from left, Wayne Mason, Neil Finn and Dave Dobbyn.

What it is that makes a Kiwi classic?

This week the 10 best New Zealand songs, as decided by an academy of songwriters and experts, were named at the Apra Silver Scroll Awards.

It was a chance to debate the merits of one generation's greatest hits over another's, to have those hooks running around the brain and generally celebrate our musical heritage.

But how did the songs in the top 10 come about and why do we still like them? Here are the stories behind the songs; and Graeme Downes - a veteran songwriter himself with a PhD in music who is now a lecturer in rock performance at Otago University - tells just what makes these great tunes tick.

1. Nature, Wayne Mason (Fourmyula 1969, Muttonbirds 1992) Mason: "It was written on my girlfriend's front porch at 710 Fergusson Drive, Upper Hutt, and there was an amazing front yard of trees and shrubs and yes, 'falling leaves.' All the lyrics came quickly, it was one of those gift spaces you get where everything flows at once. But I had nothing for the chorus and tried to make words up, but it didn't work so it was 'do doo'.

"The Fourmyula never played it live because playing acoustic guitars on stage was technically difficult and we were an electric rock band with Hammond organ and Marshall stacks.

And Nature was an organic type of record, so it never fitted into a gig. It was an experiment in the studio for us and we wanted to record it all at once, sitting in a circle. We didn't want to use drums, because that would be too heavy, so instead we used bottoms of shoes and matchboxes. It's full of that sort of sound.

"We'd come back from England and were influenced by what was happening there. We'd been a pop band and came back as a rock band doing a lot of Led Zeppelin. So Nature was pretty different for us and we tried to convert it to the rock format and for me to play Hammond organ, but it was never going to work. It was a major decision to do it like it is."

Downes: "Having been a hit twice in completely different generations, there's got to be something going on. In terms of lyrics it hooks into something of the New Zealand psyche and the nature of the place we live in.

"I guess it's an escapist thing, but it's someone alone with their thoughts trying to muddle through whatever unstated problems they are having. And they do it by going bush."

On a musical level, it starts with a classic descending bassline in a minor-type groove which is very cool. But it also twists in and out of different keys and modes and you never quite know where it's going, which I think is analogous to the dreamy thought pattern that the lyrics are on about. It fulfils a very cool marriage between music and lyric.