Don Walker Tells The Story Behind His Song and Jimmy Barnes’ Hit ‘Stone Cold’

When Jimmy Barnes released his sixth solo album ‘Heat’ in 1993 it had a familiar sound on one track. ‘Stone Cold’ was written by his former Cold Chisel band mate Don Walker. It was the first thing Don and Jimmy had done together since the break-up of Cold Chisel five years earlier.

On July 1, Don Walker’s ‘Songs’, his collected lyrics, will be published. One of those songs is ‘Stone Cold’.

“‘Stone Cold’ wasn’t written for Jim,” Don Walker . “I quickly identified as I was writing it as something that would be perfect for Jim”.

‘Stone Cold’ pretty much wrote itself after Don dropped his daughter off at school. “It was written in the first year that I had custody of my little girl Danielle,” he said. “I had put her into, what I thought on paper should be, a good school. It was a private girl’s school in Rose Bay. Each morning I would drive her from King’s Cross out there in her little school uniform and then drive back to the Cross and probably some mornings go back to bed. On this particular morning I wrote this song driving back from Rose Bay in real time. There was very little that wasn’t written in that drive. Between the hill above Rose Bay along the waterfront through Double Bay to Kings Cross, Stone Cold was written. As I was writing it, I knew it would be a lyric, melody and genre of music that would be perfect for Jim”.

Don and Jimmy went their separate ways after the Cold Chisel breakup. “I hadn’t had much to do with Jim since Cold Chisel had broken up a good few years before,” he said. “Writing ‘Stone Cold’ might have been 1988. Cold Chisel had broken up five years before. I certainly hadn’t written for Jim in the meantime. As he as pointed out only recently, that wasn’t for want of him reaching out (and he is probably right there)”.

Don never considered the song for himself. “I had this song under my belt, and I thought ‘shit, look at this. I’ve got this song that is bulls-eye for Jim and nobody else’. It’s a big black ballad. It’s a Ray Charles song. There are not many people around in Sydney that could sing that.

Listen to Don Walker talk about the creation of ‘Stone Cold’.

Jimmy says, ‘His stories written on the pages of the book lie silent, but as you read them they come to life. I can still hear the melodies but while I read the book, the music seems to fade into the background and new melodies, new meanings, present themselves.’

Songs will be released via Black Inc. on Monday, July 1, 2019, and will available in Hardback. Also released on the same day will be the widely applauded Shots on Hardback for the first time.

The following packages are available for order now at www.donwalker.com.au/songs

SONGS AND SHOTS DELUXE PACKAGE (Available until allocation exhausted)

– Songs on Hardcover
– Shots on Hardcover
– Limited 14 Songs compilation album download (view tracklisting below)
– Signed & numbered lyric sheet of Khe Sanh, signed and numbered by Don, limited to 300 only.

SONGS AND SHOTS PACKAGE (Pre-order offer only)

– Songs on Hardcover
– Shots on Hardcover
– Limited 14 Songs compilation album download

SONGS PACKAGE (Pre-order offer only)

– Songs on Hardcover
– Limited 14 Songs compilation album download

SHOTS PACKAGE (Pre-order offer only)

– Shots on Hardcover
– Limited 14 Songs compilation album download

14 Songs Tracklisting
(Available only as part of the Songs and Shots pre-order packages at www.donwalker.com.au/songs)

1. Khe Sanh – Cold Chisel
2. Flame Trees – Sarah Blasko
3. In The Early Hours – Catfish
4. Such A Beautiful Thing – Ian Moss
5. Looking Forward Looking Back – Slim Dusty
6. The Way You Are Tonight – Missy Higgins
7. Saturday Night – Cold Chisel
8. Down The Road – Jimmy Little and Troy Cassar-Daley
9. Harry Was a Bad Bugger – Don Walker (live)
10. Sitting In A Bar – Tex Don and Charlie
11. Stone Cold – Jimmy Barnes
12. Young Girls – Don Walker
13. Sing to Me – Kate Ceberano
14. All For You – Cold Chisel