The pokey terrace in Abbotsford didn't seem so dark when I played the Rickie Lee Jones albums; the trains not so loud, the Hoddle St traffic not so near, the ghostly factory not so empty.
In a clandestine operation my wife had left me and took everything but my beloved stereo system in the lounge room (including 500 or so records and a CD collection that was rapidly catching up) and, in the spare room, a single bed.
The sea and the wind and the open sky all there inside the song.
“My big sister learnt this song!” “My cousin can play this!” The excitement in the room was palpable. The look on the faces of the Grade One/Two students was a sight to behold. This is what bliss looks like.
The Sun God is a mystery to me. I have never heard it and I have not been able to find any recording of it anywhere.
I remember Sundays in the cold redbrick church, the smell of Mum's leather gloves and lipstick. During readings and sermons I would run imaginary horse races between the red, blue and green ribbons in my missal.
I’d smuggled in a small cassette player and bootlegged the show. The resulting tape (now long lost) was rarely played. It sounded like a Chuck Berry cover band rehearsing in an aircraft hangar. Which I guess it was.
It’s not a mistake to transpose your own experiences onto a song (or a poem or a novel or a painting…). It’s inevitable. It’s part of art. But it can be a trap if you’re not careful.
A group of young men in the corner sing along, happy drunk. It is their song. I drink my beer, my heart beats fast. The harmonica plays, the guitar keeps time, keeps strumming, then the chorus starts up again.When I close my eyes, I can hear Soren sing along too
It’s the middle of winter. Never mind, we’re wearing shorts and thongs. The sky is an unbroken plain of blue. Well, not entirely unbroken. Here and there, a pillar of white smoke plumes from a cane mill.