The track used the services of The Groop as backing band, with vocal contributions from Danny Robinson (Wild Cherries), The Chiffons, Maureen Elkner, Sue Brady and Judy Condon.
[citation needed] "The Real Thing" was originally only intended to be the standard duration for a pop single at that time - around three minutes - but once that point had been reached in the recording session, the backing band continued to play.
Impressed by what they heard, Meldrum and Sayers kept the tape rolling until the band eventually 'broke down', thereby capturing an extended ten-minute 'jam' based around the chord changes of the chorus.
[citation needed] The final product was a swirling psychedelic collage of music and sound effects which included deliberate edits and instrument 'dropouts' of the backing track (anticipating the Jamaican dub experiments of the 1970s) and an ominous spoken-word "buyer beware" message (suggestive of the LSD 'trip' experience) which was Meldrum's heavily filtered voice reading aloud from the product disclaimer on an Ampex recording tape box.
The AFL also used a new recording of the song for its television advertisement campaign for the 2000 season, declaring Aussie Rules as 'The Real Thing' as opposed to Rugby league.
[14] In May 2001 the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th Anniversary celebrations, named "The Real Thing" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time.
The Australian psychedelic/electronic/trance band Third Eye (a project of Ollie Olsen who had previously been in Max Q with Michael Hutchence of INXS fame) released a version of the song that charted at #76 in October 1990 in Australia.