Songs That Grabbed Me – Goanna, Solid Rock

This is a protest song about the treatment of the Australian indigenous people during the time of the first European settlement and the whole invading-the-country thing. It’s suggesting the accepted history is inaccurate and that it wasn’t the relatively peaceful encounter many are led to believe.

As a child of European immigrants, I feel a little shame for those acts, the documentation of which was no doubt watered down and “justified” for the official text books. I’m not alone.

After much pressure the Australian government issued a statement on February 13, 2008 saying sorry to our Aboriginal citizens. This is a great start. An acknowledgement of past wrongs.

Th aboriginal civilisation and cultures have survived for at least 40,000 years, the oldest known civilisation on earth. At the rate Western civilisation is going and taking the beginning of the industrial revolution as a baseline, we’d be lucky to last 1% of that time.

Here’s a video of the song featuring clips from the 1971 movie “Walkabout”, directed by Nicolas Roeg.

Out here nothin’ changes
Not in a hurry anyway
You can feel the endlessness
With the comin’ of the light ‘o day
You’re talkin’ bout a chosen place
You wanna sell it in a marketplace
Well
Well just a minute now

You’re standin’ on
Solid rock
Standin’ on sacred ground
Livin’ on borrowed time
And the winds of change
Are blowin’ down the line

Right down the line

Well round about the dawn of time
The Dreaming all began
A crowd of people came
Well they were lookin’ for their promised land
We’re runnin’ from the heart of darkness
Searchin’ for the heart of light
It was their paradise

Well they were standin’ on
Solid rock
Standin’ on sacred ground
Livin’ on borrowed time
And the winds of change
Were blowin’ cold that night

No!

Well they were standin’ on the shore one day
Saw the white sails in the sun
Wasn’t long before they felt the sting
White man, white law, white gun
Don’t tell me that it’s justified
Cause somewhere
Someone lied
Yeah, well someone lied
Someone lied
Genocide
Well someone lied

And now you’re standin’ on
Solid rock
Standin’ on sacred ground
Livin’ on borrowed time
And the winds of change
Are blowin’ down the line

Solid rock
Standin’ on sacred ground
Livin’ on borrowed time
And the winds of change
Are blowin’ down the line

Solid rock
Standin’ on sacred ground
Livin’ on borrowed time
And the winds of change
Are blowin’ down the line
No!

Dan Brown – Inferno is Out Today!

I saw a full page ad today that told me Dan Brown’s new book Inferno is out today. I also happened across this article in The Telegraph via the Passive Guy warning me not to make fun of the Renowned Dan Brown. Humorous as that article was, I wouldn’t do that. I enjoyed Dan Brown’s books.

Well, the ones I remember.

The Da Vinci Code was great but I still think there was a point people missed which was that the whole purpose of the trail-following caper was to reunite Robert Langdon with his Grandmother. Maybe it’s just me.

I read Angels and Demons immediately after and ranked that as a better story simply because it was written first and had some very similar ideas as the Da Vinci Code, exposing the latter as a partial copy.  A&D for originality.

Digital Fortress is a bit of a blur to be honest. And not because an old colleague lost my copy of DF so I can’t refer back to it. Ditto with Deception Point. The blur, not the loss.

One of the comments in PG’s post described The Lost Symbol as “bad”. I remember reading that but I don’t remember thinking it was bad. What was it about again? For the life of me I can’t recall. Did I actually read it? I certainly bought it. There’s the book right there on my shelf. It’s definitely been read by someone. It’s got the dirty marks of finger-flipping on the edges of its pages. I must have read it. No one else in the family reads Dan Brown. Hmm.

Now, I better go and buy Inferno before i forget…

Songs That Grabbed Me – Smokie, Oh Carol

I remember hearing this on the radio when I was a young tacker and loved it. Back then it was the rolling rhythm that sucked me in but later I began to appreciate the lyrics. Come on, what red blooded boy doesn’t like the imagery of a hot girl? Often exaggerated imagery projected by an over-excited mate describing a girl he can’t have but wishes he could.

Such imagery is created with perfectly placed, tight rhyming syllables found in Oh Carol, by Smokie (co-written by Australian songwriter Mike Chapman), from the 1978 The Montreux Album.

The guy makes Carol sound pretty damn desirable if you ask me!

Well, I was out cruisin’, gettin’ late
And I was losin’ when I saw you walkin’ my way
So nonchalant I bet you get what you want
But so do I and I ain’t losing’ today

Well your hips were swinging
And your jeans were clinging
You were driving me out of my mind
On a hot afternoon when there’s nothin’ to do
You’re not the sort of thing a fellow should find

So I pulled on over, you tossed your hair off your shoulder
As you turned and looked my way
Oh you would have died or you’d have skinned me alive
If I’d said what I wanted to say
So, being polite, said “What you doin’ tonight?”
You said “Just so happens I’m free.”
You got all the right curves and all the right words
And that’s alright by me.

Oh, Carol, you got me eatin’ my heart away
You got me countin’ my nights and days
Oh, I’m floating on the Milky Way
Oh, Carol, nobody’s done it before
Oh, baby, you’ve opened the door
Oh, Carol, you can do it some more

Well, if you’re ready for this
When we started to kiss
She said “Hold on a minute or two.”
Well, nat’rally I knew it couldn’t be me
I said “Oh, baby, what’s troublin’ you?”
She said “I’m not sixteen, if you know what I mean.”
So we sat and talked for a while
And when we finally kissed, you know she didn’t resist
And I must say she did it with style

Oh, Carol, you got me eatin’ my heart away
You got me countin’ my nights and days
Oh, I’m floating on the Milky Way
Oh, Carol, nobody’s done it before
Oh, baby, you’ve opened the door
Oh, Carol, you can do it some more
All right!

Well, I was out cruisin’, gettin’ late
And I was losin’ when I saw you walkin’ my way
So nonchalant I bet you get what you want
But so do I and I ain’t losing’ today

Oh, Carol, you got me eatin’ my heart away
You got me countin’ my nights and days
Oh, I’m floating on the Milky Way
Oh, Carol, nobody’s done it before
Oh, baby, you’ve opened the door
Oh, Carol, you can do it some more

Oh, Carol, you got me eatin’ my heart away
You got me countin’ my nights and days
Oh, I’m floating on the Milky Way
Oh, Carol, nobody’s done it before
Oh, baby, you’ve opened the door
Oh, Carol, you can do it some more

Oh, Carol, baby, you can do it some more
Oh, Carol, baby, you can do it some more

Checkout this concert from ’92-ish.

This is Peter Pan, signing out until next time…

Songs That Grabbed Me – Beach Boys, Surfin’ USA

Surfin’ USA by the Beach Boys (music by Chuck Berry), isn’t this the best surfing song? The Wilson brothers were said to have liked the Chuck Berry song Sweet Little Sixteen so much they thought it’d be a great idea to put some surfing lyrics to the music. That led to listing all the popular surfing locations in America, throw in a simple but clever little rhyming story about having no excuses for not surfing if there was an ocean nearby, and the rest is this very catchy song.

But that’s not the best part. Despite being a surfing song featuring American surf beaches, they felt the need to drop in a location from another great surfing country. 4th line, second verse. Australia’s Narrabeen! Whoo-hoo!

It’s not often the Yanks acknowledge Australia so when they do we all whoop and cheer. Well, not really. Only down side is that Narrabeen is in Sydney. Brian and Co. probably had trouble getting Victoria’s Bells Beach to fit nicely. Yes, that’d be the reason.

Still gotta love it!

If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody’d be surfin’
Like californ-I-A
You’d see ‘em wearin’ their baggies
Huarachi sandals, too
A bushy bushy blonde hairdo
Surfin’ U.S.A.

You’d catch ‘em surfin at Del Mar (Inside, outside, U.S.A.)
Ventura County line
Santa Cruz and Tressels,
Australia’s Narrabeen,
All over Manhattan,
And down Doheny way

Everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin U.S.A.

We’ll all be plannin’ out a route
We’re gonna take real soon
We’re waxin’ down our surfboards
We can’t wait for June
We’ll all be gone for the summer
Were on safari to stay
Tell the teacher we’re surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

At Haggerty’s and Swami’s
Pacific Palisades
San Onofre and Sunset
Redondo Beach, L.A.
All over La Jolla
At Waiamea Bay

Everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

Everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

Yeah, everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.

Check out the Muppet’s version of Surfin’ USA.

Procrastination Leads to Regret

I wanted to write this years ago but…

Three years back I bought a Nokia E71 phone because I couldn’t be bothered researching phones, didn’t want an iPhone and several colleagues had an E71 and liked it. I know it was already old at the time but I eventually got one anyway. But that wasn’t my regret.

Not mine. Someone else’s.

I quickly discovered that the equaliser didn’t work with the headphone plugged in. That was pretty crap, I thought. Maps were okay but not spectacular. Even though we did find them useful navigating Tasmania in December 2010. Web browsing was quite average on the smallish screen but I could put up with that. Besides that, I liked the phone.

Maybe a software update would fix some of these little short comings. I’ll do it one day…

Not long after, I heard that Nokia were going to provide all their Map products free of charge to selected mobiles, not including the E71. Bummer. Ah well, the maps I’ve got are okay…

Then apparently after some heated backlash from some very vocal E71 fans worldwide, Nokia decided to provide this for the E71 as well. Cool! I better update soon…

A couple of years ago my mobile service provider sent me an urgent SMS saying that after testing their network upgrades (presumably for 4G), my phone might behave strangely and freeze and crash if I don’t update the software on it. Yeah, one day I’ll get around to it…

Then late last year the WordPress login screen stopped working on the web browser. It would bring up a blank page with “fastinnerhtml” in the top left corner. I must update the phone one day…

The battery’s been dying too. Having to charging it more than once a day was the trigger. I bought a new battery, then today I upgraded the phone. Finally. The new Ovi Maps are a vast improvement on the old map app. I downloaded the voice direction and I’m going to use it tonight to find a party my daughter and her friend attended and bring them home.

The equaliser works with headphones so I can get into the bass properly now instead of listening to the tinny crap with too much mid-range and and no thump.

So my regret in this case was not updating the phone’s software when I should have. Waiting literally years to do it. Slack and lazy. I hang my head in shame.

One thing wasn’t fixed, however. I still can’t log into WordPress. Same old problem. I think I should just get a new phone…

Book Review: Grind His Bones by Richard Newell Smith

I came across this book thanks to Richard’s promotion via Twitter and his blog. The power of social media is a win for indie authors!

I have read a lot of crime thrillers but I enjoyed it. On with the review which is up on Amazon, too.

* * *

Grind His Bones by Richard Newell Smith is an action packed crime thriller featuring lawyer Jack Scully. While defending a woman accused of attempting to murder her husband, Scully finds himself defending his penniless cousin who is accused of murdering several young women. Having serious doubts about his cousin’s ability to commit the murders, Jack begins to find holes in the evidence presented against him. With the help of his medical examiner girlfriend, he embarks on a frantic race to clear his client’s name and find the real murderer and his financier. But are they too late?

This was a very well constructed story with enough changes of pace in all the right places. There were some great characters whose morals really were toward the extreme low end of the spectrum and despite leading me to wonder on a few occasions, “why would they do that?”, they provided much twisted and morbid colour. Interesting characters include a psychopathic father and son, a sexy high class prostitute and a mother who couldn’t care less about her no-hoper of a son. An excellent mix.

Looking past the very few glaring editing flaws, this is well worth a read. If you enjoy crime fiction, if you enjoy fast paced thrillers and warped minds performing despicable acts, I think you will thoroughly enjoy Grind His Bones.

 

Songs That Grabbed Me – U2, Mothers of the Disappeared

From the 1987 Album , The Joshua Tree, easily their best album in my opinion, the final track, Mothers of the Disappeared, has to be one of the saddest songs ever written. Argue with me if you like. I’ll just nod and say “yeah, probably” but I really won’t care.

The title and the soft droning music invoke a desperate sadness that even an emotionally inert blockhead like me can’t fail to pick up. On first hearing the lyrics I figured it was about soldiers lost at war described from their mothers’ point of view.

The first two lines alluded to this – “Cut down, taken from us”. The second verse I thought was about the reminders of lost children mothers would see everywhere, especially of their earlier years. The third verse suggests soldiers captured by the enemy and tortured. I imagine at night after the distractions of a busy day, when a mother goes to bed, would be a time the loss of a child would come to the forefront of her mind – if it isn’t there already. Verse 4 brought up images of a prisoners of war in a concentration camp.

Midnight, our sons and daughters
Cut down, taken from us
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat

In the wind we hear their laughter
In the rain we see their tears
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat

Night hangs like a prisoner
Stretched over black and blue
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat

In the trees our sons stand naked
Through the walls our daughters cry
See their tears in the rainfall

But it didn’t really fit. Not snugly, anyway, so after a small amount of research I found I had it all wrong. It was really about the children who had been “disappeared” by the dictatorships of Argentina and Chile in the 1980′s. Even worse than losing a child to war would be trying to deal with not knowing where your dictatorship-government has taken your children, what happened to them and what horrors they went through in the process. This song is permanently etched into my psyche. Good job, Bono.

The unofficial video of Mothers of the Disappeared from the The Joshua Trip The Movie: