Bachelor Girl is back, 20 years on from Buses and Trains

There was a moment in a Sydney bar recently when Bachelor Girl’s lead singer, Tania Doko, had the crowd in the palm of her hand.

It has been 20 years since the iconic song Buses and Trains, written by the other half of Bachelor Girl James Roche, was a smash hit.

Doko and Roche have re-formed and, on this particular night in Sydney, everyone in the bar knew she was there.

When the DJ played Buses and Trains, there was a magic moment.

“The whole crowd started singing the song and seeing them all being so elated by the song, was amazing,” she says. “It just reinforced to me just how good a song it is.”

Good is an understatement when it comes to Buses and Trains.

According to the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), the song is the 11th most-played song overall on Australian radio in the past 25 years. It is the top-played Australian performed and written song.

Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn is the most-played track, but an Australian didn’t write it.

“It is very satisfying as a writer, that such a life-affirming song, that people got it,” Roche says.

“This song seems to have really touched people, and that’s beautiful.”

Buses and Trains, released in 1998, kicked off a very successful partnership for Doko, 44, and Roche, 54, with follow-up hits, including Lucky Me and Treat Me Good.

After going their separate ways early last decade but never properly splitting up, they thought 20 years was the perfect time to get back into the studio, with new songs including the single Speak.

Those lyrics “it felt so good, I want do to it again”, in Buses and Trains sum it up perfectly for them.

They are back, as strong as ever.

“It actually feels like it used to,” Roche says.

“Even thought it has been a long time, somehow the years in between have disappeared.

“Tania and my working relationship, our creative relationship, is just like it used to be, if not better and more enjoyable.”

In the years they were apart Roche spent time in London making music for film and TV, and Doko settled in Stockholm, Sweden, with her husband, Daniel Thorgren. The couple have a four-year-old son Leo.

Doko is part of the songwriting scene in Sweden as a respected song writer, and says she learnt a lot about how to write the perfect pop song from Roche.

“When we started working together, I was 18 and James was 28,” she says.

“He was the established writer and I was the baby. I went to Stockholm and became a full-time writer, and a lot of my education came from being around James all those years. How to write a hook, a great lyric, came from James.”

There will be more music released from Bachelor Girl this year and they are part of the Day On The Green national tour alongside John Farnham, Daryl Braithwaite and American Richard Marx.

• Day On The Green
• Rochford Winery, Yarra Valley
• December 9