Burnie, Tasmania 1979
There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirming like a toad
Riders On The Storm, The Doors
I don’t buy into the idea of ‘the good old days’. “Oh we didn’t have to lock our doors in the the good old days”. I still don’t lock doors. Those days were more about Auntie Lil, who wasn’t really your auntie looking after you for the afternoon and Uncle Derek, just being hospitable, letting the kids have a go with the air rifle. Children burnt by fireworks every year and dying from head injuries after coming off bikes.
But I was just a kid myself and mostly didn’t know what was going on. Not a joiner of Scouts, or a school boarder or from a broken home, so I was at reduced risk of being preyed upon. The magnitude of what Australian adults have done to Australian children over the decades of ‘the good old days’ has come to light in my lifetime, and it’s changed how we think about that relationship, for ever.
But I did read The Bulletin, and watched the ABC News along with my dad – that was a 7 o’clock fixture and we were not allowed to talk over it. I knew about the nefarious Painters and Dockers Union, and Putty Nose Nicholls ending up dead on the highway on his way to Melbourne to testify. I remember the Truro murders and the feeling that life was cheap, (particularly in South Australia for some reason). A girl my age who lived just down the hill but went to a different primary school was abducted on her way home, and murdered. There’s a killer on the road Jim? Ya don’t say.
I listened to Burnie’s own 7BU exclusively as a kid. My primary school was a slab of tarmac in the very middle of Burnie, and 7BU was across the road. We crossed at the traffic lights to nearby shops to get lunch and lollies at recess. But we also wandered further afield; some naughty older kids went as far as the notorious Zodiac Milk Bar. I went to Beaurepaires Tyres to get Sumitomo and Mitsui stickers, and also into the front office at 7BU to get printed copies of the week’s Top 40.
Riders On The Storm was the only Doors song 7BU ever played. My mental image of the singer was someone like the Marlboro Man crossed with the God of the Old Testament. All-seeing, all-knowing, powerful but not necessarily prepared to intervene. An electrical storm rumbles in the distance under the music… or is it the sound of the surf?
Down at the beach was another good place to get into trouble. I knew all about the disappearance of the Beaumont children too. When I was six the man who is still Tasmania’s longest serving prisoner, James Ryan O’Neill, abducted an eight year old boy named Ricky, who was later found dead. Past acquaintances remember O’Neill claiming to have taken the Beaumonts.
If you give this man a ride,
sweet family will die
Riders on the Storm was probably the start of my lifelong love of the electric piano. On the seven-minute album version Ray Manzarek has a lot of room to move. He settles into a boogie I have seen described as “choogling” – that for me is the epitome of road music. If he kept it up for another 113 minutes it would get me quite happily from Hobart to Launceston. But I wouldn’t be picking up any lonesome drifters on the way.
Loved it Chris. I don’t think a 10-year old me would have appreciated The Doors.
Chris, my teenage self was in thrall to the LA Woman album. I still reckon it goes alright. :)
Thanks for this.
Cheers
Thanks John and DJ
Chris, your story brought back some memories. Growing up in Geelong we had 3GL which was pretty conservative. When reading the morning news you could even hear them turning the pages of the Geelong Advertiser newspaper. Fortunately we could tune our transistor radios to the Melbourne stations such as 3XY. I recently saw a documentary where the Doors were jamming on the song Ghost Riders In The Sky and Jim came in with the Riders On The Storm lyrics. Ray added in the jazz chords to match. I too enjoy the electric piano sound. Ray was very clever to be playing the bass with his left hand on his Fender Rhodes until the Doors brought in an electric bass player in later years.
Thanks David; I actually listened to 3GL for 2 weeks in 1981 when I had chicken pox. Some atmospheric conditions meant it came through loud and clear. The ads for Jokers Shop Jeanery in Little Malop St are still in my head. The Iran/Iraq war started over that fortnight as well.
Chris, now that’s weird – I listened to 3GL for two weeks in 1972 when I had the measles. The song that was on high rotation at the time was one called ‘The Pie’ by the Sutherland Brothers. In your Doors story I read that you have an interest in electric pianos. Earlier this month I wrote a stereo story that included information about my Wurlitzer electric piano and the song memory connection was Supertramp’s ‘Bloody Well Right’. A vivid Doors memory I have was when I was in Los Angeles and we were driving our rental car down Sunset Boulevard and LA Woman came on the radio. Sensational.
You reckon LA Woman would be on permanent rotation in every rental car in LA? That’d be my guess.