When James Reyne first penned Reckless in the early 1980s, he didn't really believe in it.
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He said the song came to him too easily, in fact.
"When I first wrote it I didn't think it was any good," he said.
"It kind of just fell out."
Reckless turned out to be a hit single in 1983 for his band Australian Crawl and got international attention to boot.
The group performed Reckless as one of their three songs for the Oz for Africa concert (1985), which was the Australian leg of the global Live Aid show organised by Midge Ure and Bob Geldof. The Oz for Africa concert was broadcast on MTV.
Now Reyne OAM said Reckless was one of his preferred songs to perform live with his band.
"I can lose myself in it a bit towards the end," Reyne said.
Speaking ahead of the James Reyne's Crawl File Tour, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of Australian Crawl's first greatest hits collection, he said the milestone had crept up on him.
Reyne, who did not like to live in the past, said he had performed a lot of other music since the Crawl File.
"It was all a long time ago, and sometimes I feel like it was another person who lived that life," he said.
"But I'm still making music and I'm still on the road; Australian Crawl was a great apprenticeship!"
These days Reyne performs with an eight-piece band: guitarists Brett Kingman and Josh Owen, bassist Andy McIvor, with Sean Johnson on keys, drummer John Watson (who was part of Australian Crawl with Reyne) and backing singers Melinda Jackson and Nicky Kurta.
It was the first time the band had played exclusively Australian Crawl on tour for a while. Crawl File was the biggest Australian best-of of 1984, hitting No. 2 on the charts (kept out of top spot by the year's biggest compilation, Choose 1985, which spent nine weeks at No. 1).
The album capped a bittersweet year for Australian Crawl; the band sponsored 1984's Bells Beach Surf Classic, Reyne won a Logie for Most Popular New Talent after his starring role in TV mini-series Return To Eden, Australian Crawl won Most Popular Group at the Countdown Rock Awards, but then the band was rocked by the death of Guy McDonough and a planned US tour was scrapped.
Reyne said he had sustained his touring career by pacing himself.
"I'm enjoying it much more now because we're grown-ups who read books!" he said.
"I eat well and exercise; when we're touring I always find a local pool to swim laps.
"I like to go for a run and it's easy to pack running shoes and shorts; I always swim or run but running is a good way to see a town."
(For the record, Reyne read Patrick Melrose novels and works by Seymour Krim, one of the Beat Generation writers.)
Crawl File plays like a classic gig, opening with the band's debut single, Beautiful People, and closing with their most popular live song, The Boys Light Up.
In between will be some of the most-loved Australian anthems including Errol, Oh No Not You Again, Lakeside, Downhearted, Things Don't Seem and, naturally, the at-first under-rated but now appreciated Reckless.
A regular on the Border live music scene, Reyne had joined the Red Hot Summer Tour since its infancy.
"We played a Red Hot Summer Tour show in Albury-Wodonga when there were only a few hundred people turning up; now there are thousands," he said.
"Once we stayed at a hotel in Albury where a gang of bikies had also booked.
"We were all together at breakfast; I remember the bikies being very polite!"
Crawl File 40th Anniversary will hit Club Corowa on Friday, May 24, and at SS&A Albury on Saturday, May 25.
Tickets are on sale now: jamesreyne.com.au
