Day 437 | Boranup campsite in Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park: don't know where those naturalists are hiding ... too wet maybe
31 km | Heading west total: 15,724 km
I’ve been hearing a tune in my mind over the last few days ever since I crossed Bow River back before Walpole. Sometimes you just can’t eject a tune from the brain.
For those non Australians amongst us that’s also the name of a tune of one of Oz’s most famous 70/80s rock bands: Cold Chisel.
Can’t confess that I ever really listened to them but 30 years on it’s still on radio rotation as you discover when you search for the local ABC on the dial. Every now and again there’s even an all Cold Chisel Weekend broadcast for the local Boguns, rednecks, as they yearn for their lost youth.
Bow River is one of those songs about getting stuck in a dead end job and, well, yearning for a lost youth. Stuck working long hours in the city, drinking away the savings and dreaming of going back to the hometown far away. (“The money I’ll save won’t buy my youth again …” )
No, they never appealed at the time, listening to their songs now shows them as a band that was generally less than the sum of the parts. The band sound is a muddied mess.
Ian Moss, the guitarist with a great clear sound, (and who wrote and sung Bow River), seldom seemed to know what to do with his talents. The singer Jimmy Barnes has gone on to be Australia’s most successful singer. His raucous powerful voice, only known at volume 11, is nothing if not filled with passion.
As an antidote I’ve been listening on my ipod to some Karrin Allyson, wow, is that ever the complete opposite, where the whole is way more than the sum of the parts. Her limited, thinnish voice and hot band works well with those melancholy ballads like Everything must change, Meaning of the blues and All or nothing at all._
Maybe I just like her coolness and distance.
Bow River and What’s new on the same playlist?
Yeah. I’m full of contradictions I know.