Ever been curious as to where some rock bands names originate from?  How about Powderfinger?  There could be numerous assumptions about its origins… but really where did it come from?

The band formed in Brisbane in 1989, and by 1992 the boys had cemented the line-up as we know it today including vocalist Bernard Fanning, guitarists Darren Middleton and Ian Haug, bassist John Collins, and drummer Jon Coghill.  However, the name now synonymous with Australian rock was coined by the initial crew Ian Haug, John Collins and drummer Steven Bishop.   

Interestingly, the band took their name from the song of another music legend Neil Young and his song titled "Powderfinger".  Try that little trivia gem on your friends, I haven’t seen that one on the underside of a bottle top!

So we have established the origins however what exactly does it mean?  Young first recorded a solo acoustic version of "Powderfinger" in 1975 and it has two possible interpretations.   Either it is about a family living in the back woods and doing some illegal business. And a boat, possibly a police boat shows up on which there is a man with a gun. Or perhaps the story took place during the Civil War and the boat is a Yankee gunboat approaching a Southern sympathizer's homestead on the Mississippi.

Whatever the setting of the story it is a very sad result for the poor young boy on the porch, "raised the rifle to my eye, never stopped to wonder why/then I saw black and my face splash in the sky".  Then in the last verses he says, "Shelter me from the powder and the finger, cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger".

So its true meaning still remains as murky as the Mississippi today!  Perhaps it would be best answered by Ian or John, what was their interpretation at the time…