At ANZAC reunions and marches I’ve heard my late father referred to as a hero. I’m not much for the Aussie hero moniker, neither was Dad.
At some point the peg began to sing, and the song it sang was (Once I Had A) Secret Love.
The song, like him, is drenched in space. The unhurried chords set the scene perfectly. Space.
Every summer he drove across the country in a clapped-out vehicle to see us kids, but he always went back. Back to where he had a stool at the bar and a nickname he loved: the Professor.
Dad stands at the bowser. I sit in the passenger seat. The thrum of petrol is like a bassline.
Music is always so much more than just music. It’s quite simply everything.
My Beatles education commenced, early before I was born
Although mine was a record and dad’s was a tape, there was no mistaking a shift in the axis that staked our two worlds.
I sometimes think of my father as a cold, bleak Icelandic landscape, and his songs as those hot springs that bubble up from unknown depths.
Some guests on Desert Island Discs are more interesting than others, and some are not what you would expect at all - Robert Plant, for example.