Shouts From Down Under

There's something about nostalgia if only I could remember..

Today I learned what a Dream-catcher is; one of those round things with feathers on it. Yes, very important when you have nightmares and you jerk awake in the night, alone, shaking, frightened and sweating with fear of basically the unknown.

Or you've dreamed of times years in the past.

Way back when you were young, you thought the time would last forever. The long days of summer spent eating watermelon from the cool place under the house, the exploding home made ginger beer.
Worcestershire sauce was so peppery you'd be warned to get a bit of bread afterwards or you'll be sorry. There were lots of good times. Yep, the good old days. Really? Were they that good?

Maybe memory loss will ease away the bad times, the failures, the loss of the old folks and other friends who passed away. The pets we used to have. The adventures. The friends that came and went.

Some of that stuff must have shaped who we are today. Things that we did would be frowned on now. Risky activities, poisonous and dangerous workplaces. The now non-existent thing called common sense that is now overruled by policies brought about by frivolous or otherwise litigation. Big company payouts for accidents. Is that really how it went?

The thing I've been thinking about is music. Those hits way back when we were kids. That's if we had a record player. Our parents and grandparents grew up with gramophones and all that stuff. Well when I was a kid we had a cheap plastic record player with those detachable square speaker boxes with the grille on the front.
The records were 45's, 33's and 78's? The memory is cobwebby and distant.

There is something about nostalgia that appeals to us humans. I mean you don't see dogs or cats suddenly rushing back to where they were born, sniffing the kennel etc. Ok maybe you do.

So the first music we had was I think Credence Clear Water Revival's Bad Moon Rising. And another one from some group I can't remember called Black to black. No it wasn't AC/DC and I can't remember, but Dad would always say to turn it off. He thought it was evil. Maybe it was.

There was John Willamson's Old Man Emu and of course, the man whose name we hesitate to mention, Rolf Harris and his Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport. Ok. Moving on.

There are quite a few memories of my young days that are just plain creepy. Yep, I can still feel the chills. Our grandmother seemed to delight in telling us all the ghost stories and strange happenings she could dredge up, or unearth- exhume- and I think mum would have been horrified at this if she'd known. But of course, we didn't tell her, because at the time it was exciting, and somehow naughty. It was rebellious to be hearing nasty stuff that had happened in the past centuries of horse and cart, before the Model T Ford, back after the drought of '39 or that bushfire during the depression.

I can still hear the mantel clock ticking in the lounge room of our grandparents house. We would stay there sometimes. It was either excruciatingly boring, or heart stopping scary. You just had to be there. Lonely isolated road miles from anywhere. Single phone box on the road with a mournful yellow light coming from it.
Stories of cars breaking down and some shrouded man knocking on the door.

"He could have donged you and no two ways about it!" Or the time of a bad flood and the highway was cut.

"The police came. No one was allowed through, not even semi's. So I cooked bread all day in the Canberra, and sold it out the front through the window. Used up all the flour I had that week. Yes. Good week that was".

The memories aren't always pleasant. But the thing I remember most clearly about songs are the ones with murderous lyrics. Yep. Pop songs weren't for the faint hearted or sensitive back then. Not fully convinced are you? Hmmm. What about this little ditty?

http://youtu.be/uu9wmk4L2NM

Charlie sang other charming songs too, about sleeping under a table in a road side park, a man could wake up dead. Well, I'm glad that hasn't been my experience so far. Maybe next spring.

Claude told us straight to forget about hanging around that girl on Wolverton Mountain

http://youtu.be/QpmztcX_BtI

Then Olivia Newton John was cheesed off pretty much with her fiancée.



Probably one of the first creepy and depressing songs I head was Jim Reeves Blizzard. Excellent singer, like the rest. It's just...the memories.



Blizzard

There's a blizzard comin' on and I'm wishin' I was home
For my pony's lame and he can't hardly stand
Lord my hands feel like they're froze and there's a numbness in my toes
But it's only seven miles to Mary Anne it's only seven miles to Mary Anne

You can bet we're on her mind for it's nearly suppertime
And I know that there's hot biscuits in the pan
Listen to that northern sigh if we don't get home we'll die
But it's only five more miles to Mary Anne it's only five more miles to Mary Anne

That wind's howlin' and it seems mighty like a woman's screams
And we'd best be movin' faster if we can
Dan just think about that barn with that hay so soft and warm
It's only three more miles to Mary Anne it's only three more miles to Mary Anne

Come on Dan get up your ornery cuss or you'll be the death of us
I'm so weary but I'll help you if I can
All right Dan perhaps it's best we'll just stop awhile and rest
For it's still another mile to Mary Anne it's still another mile to Mary Anne

Late that night the storm was gone and they found him there at dawn
He made it but he couldn't leave ol' Dan
Yes they found him on the plains his hands froze to the reins
He was just a hundred yards from Mary Anne
He was just a hundred yards from Mary Anne

Everyone seemed to die back in the good old days. Drowned. Cholera. Diptheria. The war. Typhoid fever or TB. Botulism. Seems humorous now? Cheerful, for sure. Right.

There's an Australian group though that seemed to make up for it all. They'd cheer up a drought stricken farmer, or a fly blown sheep caught upside down in a blackberry bush with 10 tormenting crows.

Judith Durham and, yes, The Seekers.

http://youtu.be/4Ga9Bs4fzSY





And like the carnival, this blog is over. I'll think back on this blog with fond memories.

Sparky