Vin Maskell Gertrude St, Geelong West, Victoria. 1976Sometimes Bill’s quiet voice would quicken with enthusiasm as he suggested we listen to a particular song. And we’d sit there and not interrupt the song. I wouldn’t even reach for another shortbread, there on the spotless glass coffee table.
Brutas Mudcake Pounding the pavement, northern suburbs, Melbourne 2009The hypnotic opening quickly sucks you in like the hypnotic left, right, left, right of runners hitting the footpath. And sometimes it’s only on a long run that you can make sense of life’s many conundrums.
Chris Johnston Christchurch , New Zealand, 1983Last weekend, my older brother handed me a letter I had written to him in 1983 when I was 17. It was strange and lonely to read it; handwritten, large lettering, blue biro, a schoolboy.
Stephen Andrew Somewhere along the Hume Highway, summer of 1982I catch myself staring too long at the sunlight on her hair, or laughing too loud at one of her jokes, and feel the sharp pierce of an unbridgeable distance.
Brutas Mudcake Rye foreshore, summer of 1988/89Seven years old, and I’d entered the orbit of popular culture and had an entrée to what was as the epitome of cool, teenager-dom.
Lorne Foreshore outside The Wild Colonial, summer 1968/69 Irrewarra, summer 2015Lying close together I’d held her hand under a towel so nobody would notice, and, incredibly I’d even stolen a kiss from her.
Sevana Ohandjanian Berlin, Germany, December, 2012.Grabbing my phone from its position atop the toilet roll dispenser, I find the song. The only song that can turn the shaky breaths smooth, that sucks the trembling out of my fingertips.
Roger Wells, songwriter Pigdon St, Carlton, April 1979I woke my girlfriend Carol and played the song to her. "It's a hit," she said and went back to sleep.
Vin Maskell St Andrews market, Victoria, May 2012The bloke with about 30 milk crates of second-hand records was in no hurry. “Five dollars each,” he said. “Or, at this time of day, three for ten.”
Stephen Andrew Central New South Wales, circa 1987By the time the bus hit the Queensland border, I was a changed man, hearing things in a new way. It was a conversion of sorts, or perhaps, a mini musical epiphany. From that day on, country music made sense to me.