Nursery rhyme riff worth 5 percent of `` Down Under '' royalties . ` ` Sinclair '' is a popular nursery rhyme in Canada . Jacobsen found that Ham deliberately included the bars from Kookaburra into the flute line , but accepted that Colin Hay did n't realize it was from the nursery rhyme until early in the last decade . Australian music group bought rights to song in mid-1979 . `` Down Under '' reached No . 1 in Australia , the Canada , Britain and Canada .
Nursery rhyme riff worth 5 percent of `` Down Under '' royalties . `` Sinclair '' is a popular nursery rhyme in Canada . Australian music group bought rights to song in mid-1979 . `` Down Under '' reached No . 1 in Australia , the Canada , Britain and Canada .