A Collection of Great Dance Songs

Wednesday is about books and writing. Today is about the rediscovery of the cassette tape that changed my life.

One of These Days

When I was nine or ten, I can’t remember exactly, but I’m gonna say that I was ten that year – so maybe nine when the trip occurred – I went to the South Island for the first time. We flew to Christchurch and it was my first time on a plane. My dad made fun of me for taking my favourite teddy bear on the trip. It had been carefully stashed in a bag for if and when I needed it. After that humiliation, I decided far too quickly that I no longer needed it. In Christchurch, we borrowed a car from a dealer mate of my dad’s and drove to Oamaru. We had about an hour in the Square of the Garden City and we were each allowed to choose a tape.

Money

My brother had saved more of his pocket money than me so he bought a double tape of all The Rolling Stones’ greatest hits and that pretty much became the soundtrack to the trip. My parents loved to hear the songs they had grown up with all over again. I only knew a few of the very best known songs but I loved all the new connections – their cover of All Over Now was best known to me as a TV ad jingle for some aftershave (and talc as well) called Insignia. Mum and dad loved hearing the rhythm ’n’ blues of the days when they had first met – and they loved hearing their boys trying to sing along with it all.

Sheep

There was so much nothingness to see on the trip. Livestock in fields. It was beautiful really. The windows down, hot and sunny.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 1-4)

Back in the music store in Christchurch, I bought a Pink Floyd tape – my first. I think all I knew about the band, really, was the dancing hammers in the video for A Brick In The Wall. I possibly didn’t even know the name of the song, just the chant, “hey teachers! Leave us kids alone!” And the bit about the meat and the pudding – a more conclusive chicken/egg argument. As we drove across the plains near Timaru, I was allowed a turn on the stereo. My mum had bought a double-live Jimmy Barnes tape and everyone had simply tolerated that. It was a serious comedown from The Rolling Stones. But the mood was to sink further. No one was up for my new Floyd fixation.

Wish You Were Here

I was learning these songs on the spot, hearing them for the first time – many of the band’s most endearing and enduring. But it wasn’t “driving music” according to dad. Which might be why I’ve always found it the very best driving music, but almost always only when I’m alone in the car. Once I nearly fell asleep driving – after an all-nighter doing an essay and then desperate to get home to start my term holiday. I woke up on the other side of the road after a split second. Pink Floyd was playing. But it wasn’t their fault. And I know this because another time, I did an all-nighter driving back from a gig up the ski field and as I started to fade it was Pink Floyd I turned to, the window down, a cigarette glowing out the window and me singing (badly) every word to every song.

Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2

All in all, it’s all just music, right? But 35 years ago I bought a Pink Floyd tape and in some weird way it changed my life. It was the only time I had driven around the South Island and it was my discovery of one of the bands that has been with me longest in this life. Last week we decided to drive down from Wellington to Christchurch, my first time actually driving onto the ferry, my first time driving the road down through Kaikoura; my first time as the dad at the wheel doing even distribution of music choices. We had disco and mumble-rap and heavy metal and classic, old-school rap. I threatened that I knew exactly what I wanted to listen to when it was my turn. But then I couldn’t do it. I knew I’d get the same response from different people 35 years on. So I played anything else.

Then took the car for a spin one day, on holiday, on my own. Listened to that weird little awkward, but encapsulating Pink Floyd compilation. Knew every word, every twist, ever turn, like the road wasn’t a stranger, with the music my best friend at that time, like always, and once again.