Track List
- Cruel Summer - Bananarama
- Run to Paradise - Choirboys
- Koala Sprint - Midnight Oil
- Summer - Buffalo Tom
Playlist
Description
All these songs were the soundtrack to very specific summers in my past.
First up we have Cruel Summer by Bananarama.
The year is 1984, I have literally just turned 14 a few days before and we are on our annual Summer holidays trip. For several years in a row we went camping at Rainbow Beach which is a remote section of the Queensland coastline only accessible by 4x4 (see attached photo). We would camp there on the beach for 3-4 weeks straight. Leaving usually right after my birthday and staying over Christmas and New Years and going back home some time in the New Year. I loved these trips and would always make up mix tapes to play in my WalkMan to listen to while I walked along the beach or the Rainforest or while I was fishing trying to catch our dinner for the night. This song in particular stands out in my memory though because that year there was a girl who was also camping up there who was about my age who I fell totally on love with. I spent a good part of that trip working up the courage to talk to her. I thought she looked like Siobhan from Bananarama and so would listen to that song over and over to work up courage. To tell you the truth it probably made things worse. Anyway I finally plucked up the courage and she was a lovely girl who I became friends with for the few weeks we were there. We never had any contact after that Summer but every time I hear that song now I am transported back to that carefree time all those years ago.
Second we have Run to Paradise by Choirboys.
The year is 1989, I have just graduated High School and me and some of my mates all decided to go camping at a caravan park up on the Sunshine Coast over New Years. 6 of us bundled into my mates old EH Holden Station Wagon and off we went. One of the first songs we played was this song and it became kind of the theme song for the trip. We had some awesome memories made that trip. New Years Eve we went to see The Devinyls at a pub and it was one of the best concerts I’ve been to. The photo I have attached here was taken by a mate of mine who scanned it in and sent it to me a few years back after we reconnected on Facebook. It is outside the pub just before the concert. I believe I was off my tree at the time. That was the last time we would all be together as we went off to Uni (College) etc after that and started moving away but it was a Summer I will always remember and this song brings me back.
This song is about the pilgrimage Australian surfers make up the Pacific Highway over the Summer/Christmas break to Queensland (Queensland is the California of Australia) to soak up the sun and the waves. It talks of a 20 hour drive from Melbourne up to Brisbane. Luckily for me it was only a 2 hour drive because I already lived in Queensland and just needed to get up to the Sunshine Coast. While I was going to Art College we would have a 4 month break over the Summer and me and my best mate, who was at the same College, would jump in his car and travel up to the Sunny Coast to crash at peoples places and generally bum about for months on end. This song was our road trip song to get us in the mood for the easy carefree times ahead. There were a few places we could sleep under some people houses (most of them old wooden beach type houses up on wooden stilts). We would hitch rides all over the place and usually ended up doing “Roadie” work for some band or other to make some cash to survive the Summer. (The attached photo is of me goofing around backstage at some gig or other.) If you don’t listen to any of my other songs please listen to this one. This song is so special to me. It begins with the most beautiful poetry and ends with the fade out of a heartbeat bass line, soft guitar and haunting keyboards that truly transports me back to watching the sun come up on the beach as the previous nights fire is nothing but glowing coals. Those were magical summers.
Lastly we have Summer by Buffalo Tom.
The year is now 1995, I have moved to the Sunshine Coast, the place I have spoken about visiting in the previous two stories. I was drawn to the place and wanted to move where it was Summer most of the year around. I now have a job, a wife and our first child had just been born. This song took hold of me at that time. It came to represent the change in my life from a carefree youth to a responsible adult. Summer had gone for me, or at least what it had come to represent. It wasn’t so much a lament, as a recognition. I was, and still am, deeply in love with my wife. I had discovered a whole new meaning to the word ‘love’ with our child. Holding her in my arms that first time made me feel like I was going to have a heart attack. I didn’t think I had the capacity to hold all that love in my heart. So these were wonderful times don’t get me wrong. And yet, this song took me at that time and I guess in a way helped me transition from what was, to what was to come. (The attached photo is of my wife and I with our precious new born first child.)
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