Jimmy Barnes says he never played soccer on grass until he came to Australia from Scotland in 1961 as a five-year-old.
It was paradise found for the little boy from Glasgow, even if his new home was the hard-scrabble suburb of Elizabeth in northern Adelaide.
The now revered rocker and happy family man - a great-grandfather no less - says he owes everything to Australia, becoming a citizen in 1988. 
"Where I lived in Glasgow looked like Dresden after the war. It was a bomb site. I don't think I'd ever played football on grass until I moved to Australia," he said.
"When I came to Australia, it was like heaven. I'd escaped this bleak, overpowering, northern British depression that was happening after the war.
"We still had all our problems growing up as a struggling immigrant family but Australia was like a breath of fresh air, literally. Playing on grass, having good schools - trees. I didn't even know trees where I'd come from.
"So from the day I got here, I've loved Australia. And then having the opportunity to grow up here and follow my dreams, to join a rock 'n' roll band and write songs and play to people and travel the country playing music making people happy - it's been pretty bloody good to me."
It's ironic that it took a migrant to bring to life some of the most quintessential Aussie rock anthems - Flame Trees, Khe Sanh, Working Class Man, songs all written by others but sung with unequivocal passion by Barnes.
They'll all be sung again by Barnes as he takes to the stage on the grass in front of Parliament House in Canberra on   January 25, the headline act at a concert to celebrate Australia Day and the Australian of the Year Awards.
There is still an immense sense of gratitude to Australia from 59-year-old Barnes, who'd like others to share in the same good fortune he experienced
"I keep my Scottish connection. I know where I was born and that's an important part of my history, and I think all immigrants are the same. But if I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Australia," he said,
"I've got a place in Thailand I go to with Jane and I still go back to Scotland but after about two weeks all I want to do is come back home. I want to be back in Australia.
"Australia means everything to me. It's given me everything and I just think it's the best place in the world. I feel lucky to be bringing up my grandkids and great-grandkids here."
The singer last year took to Facebook to tell the group Reclaim Australia that it could not use his songs at its rallies. The group, which says it is "patriotic" and "stands up to radical Islam, political correctness and the threat of home-grown terror", was "deeply saddened" by Barnes' request.
Barnes said at the time "none of these people represent me and I do not support them".
"The Australia I belong to and love is a tolerant Australia," he said last   July.
"We've got to be broad-minded in this country. We're a lucky place to be, we're away from the real trouble in this world and we've got to keep it that way.
"There's no two ways about it. You can't have immigration without hard work. You can't have tolerance without compassion and making an effort. And I think that's what we all have to do on Australia Day, just reflect on that and then get on with life, make life great for your families."
Barnes said there was one Australia Day which would always stay with him, which involved two Aussie icons, actor Bryan Brown and singer Billy Thorpe.
"A week before Australia Day more than 10 years ago, I get a phone call from Bryan Brown, 'G'day Jimmy, I want you to come and play at my house, I want you to play at a barbecue at my house.'
"He said, 'It'll be great. Billy Thorpe will be there'. And I'm a huge Thorpie fan, he's like my hero.
"So I arrive at Bryan's door on Australia Day for a barbecue on Sydney Harbour and I walk in and he says, 'I want you to sing Waltzing Matilda with Billy Thorpe.
"And I said, 'I don't know all the words'. And he said, 'I've printed them out for you'.
"So I remember sitting there singing Waltzing Matilda with Billy Thorpe in Bryan Brown's backyard under the Harbour Bridge, looking at the harbour, thinking, 'It doesn't get any more Australian than this'. That was the ideal Australia Day for me."