"Overkill" by Colin Hay / Men At Work
Ghosts appear and fade away
“I can't get to sleep / I think about the implications of diving in too deep / And possibly the complications / Especially at night / I worry over situations I know will be all right / Perhaps it's just imagination”
As a kid, I remember a pile of records leaning against the record player. Sunlight streaming in. There were so many of them, and the record player took up it’s own little corner. We lived in the country, and most houses had just such a pile against just such a record player. Record players were everywhere. Records took up a lot of space, and we had to take care of them so they wouldn’t start skipping.
As kids, we’d all fight for the chance to right the tone arm when a record did start skipping. “No, it’s MY TURN.” Sometimes there’d be a penny taped to the top of the stylus, to keep it from skipping quite so often.
But most of the time the records didn’t skip. Most of the time we just had music on and our lives just kind of revolved around it. In my mind they did anyway. I’m sure the parents were just busy being grownups. There were plenty of people around, thinking about plenty of other things. But for as long as I can remember, all of my thoughts related back to music in some way.
“Day after day it reappears / Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear / Ghosts appear and fade away”
“Men At Work” was one of those vital records. I never had it myself, but I spent some time in some houses where they had it in rotation. And what a record: “Land Down Under” sits alongside Toto’s “Africa” as one of the great songs about White Guys Traveling. Where is Down Under? My little imagination ran wild with these songs.
I find traveling to be a bit of a chore now. I ruined travel for myself by doing too much of it when I was younger, in too many wrong, sloppy ways. Then I wasted away on the road in dark clubs for too long, surviving on too many gas station burritos. Now it takes quite a lot to motivate me to go somewhere. But I’m in Argentina this week and man, is it a big world out here. You gotta get out into it. You just have to.
I’m starting to love traveling again, but just so you know: “Tourism” is bullshit. Go and live somewhere, learn a language, find out what citizenship really means. Connect with real people in a real way. It takes more work, but it’s way, way better.
“Alone between the sheets only brings exasperation / It's time to walk the streets / Smell the desperation / At least there's pretty lights / And though there's little variation / It nullifies the night from overkill”
Men At Work sounded like a beacon, inviting me out of the familiar childhood routines. I think this is because they’re an Australian band, but Colin Hay is Scottish. His family moved down under when he was 14, and he did “the music thing” from there. He lives in Topanga now. A legend.
Colin’s music isn’t for everyone, but for some of us it’s everything. It’s grown up music, but it speaks to the very young part of me that went to Mexico as a six year old and had my eyes opened to the ever-expanding bigness of the world. You can feel very small sometimes, but if you open your mouth and sing you can make some noise. Connect.
I didn’t have to grow through a bunch of contortions to like the sound of Colin Hay’s voice, like I had to do with Bruce Springsteen. When I hear Colin Hay’s voice, I simply feel less alone. What else do you need?
Ghosts appear and fade away:
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All these posts seem to speak to me in a deep way- not that I’m a special listener. It’s probably just what we humans do- seeing connections- making things relevant. But I was awake last night when this post came in- and I had my phone in my hand so I could look up all the Spanish words sprinkled in the book I am reading , The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Up in the middle of the night because I am still jet lagged and on upside down time and space worrying about my family, the world. I can imagine we are all doing that. But I woke up this morning with the sun and I am grateful for starting to feel back in the US- well, maybe.