“Colours of New Zealand”

Carmel College Year 10 students Deborah Peter and Grace Smith had never written a song before they entered Hook, Line & Sing-a-long.

The Brooke Fraser and Taylor Swift fans, who became fast friends in Year 8, are the Overall Runners-up in the 2017 contest for their song “The Colours of New Zealand” and winners of a $250 prize from MusicWorks. 

With the help of their music teacher Glen Child – who set writing an entry as a task for their class – the songwriters chose a winning formula to craft their song: 

“We listened to all of the previous Hook, Line & Sing-a-long winners, how many chords were involved, if it was catchy or not. If you could play it on a ‘ukulele and if a primary school could sing it. And we tried to base it off of those.”

However, the duo didn’t feel restricted by the song guidelines. “We didn’t notice all the rules – we just kept it simple. Because we had to write a song, we said, let’s write about something we want to write about. Not just do it because we have to.” Grace told us. And the song’s theme? “I just sort of thought of it, and we brainstormed about each colour and put the verses together.”

The pair described writing a song together as “fun, and we got to learn a lot from each other… We had a lot of laughs doing it as well!”

It won’t be the last time Deborah and Grace write together. “You can go anywhere with it. You can do anything, any chords, any words you want to express, it’s a big place you can look around and just have fun.”

Colours of NZ Full Track
Colours of NZ Instrumental
Colours of NZ Lead Sheet
Colours of NZ Lyrics and Chords
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