GREEN GROW THE RUSHES O Traditional folk song. Story by Ruby Claire
When I was 10, my aunty moved from that house and we no longer had the uncle with the big red truck. There was no more chipped white paint and no more tyre swing.
LITTLE LION MAN by MUMFORD & SONS. Story by Claire Roberts
Our flight back to London is delayed by a day, and we battle with a lecturer who threatens to fail us for missing a mandatory class. I don't know where the set-list we collected lives now.
CARRICKFERGUS by BRYAN FERRY Story by Stephen Andrew
A quarter of a century later, I hear this song again, rising spontaneously through the eucalypts.
GOTTA GET IT by THE RESONANT ROGUES Story by Vin Maskell
My friend Gina sends an email with the subject line ‘Resident Rogues’, inviting me to see a swing/country/gypsy music band from the US in a little bar called the Merri Creek Tavern. She tells me a story as we wait to see the band.
HARD ON THINGS by CORIN RAYMOND Story by Luke Davies
The song reached in hard and touched me. That night I have a fan moment and purchase three of Corin's CDs during the interval.
I DRINK by MARY GAUTHIER Story by Luke R Davies
Mary Gauthier entered my little world and reinforced the notion that songwriting is a great art form as worthy of any other. To me, she was, until then, an unknown master of songwriting.
I’VE GOT A PLAN by MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE Story by Vin
Save for the weeds, not much grows in our front yard. The soil is rubbish, almost literally. “What’s the plan?” my neighbour says cheerily, as I'm weeding.
HANDYMAN BLUES by BILLY BRAGG Story by Vin Maskell & Paul Bateman
I'm up on top of the house looking at a hole in the roof. A storm is coming. I’m thinking rain, I’m thinking possums, I’m thinking Handyman, wherefore art thou?
GRACE by JIM McCANN Story by Rick Kane
Then, in a most respectful and mournful voice they started singing. It was a song based on a true event from the Easter Uprising of 1916 which marries the personal to the political, the blood of resistance to the marrow of love.
EL CONDOR PASA by SIMON & GARFUNKEL Story by Tony Birch
While I loved music and sat in class day-dreaming that the girl sitting in front of me in class was the girl Marc Bolan swooned over in Hot Love, I hated school, a situation reflected in my term reports.