"GO BACK JACK....."

"...wheels turning round and round.
Go back Jack and do it again..."

Memory and nostalgia.
To some people it can be a bad thing. To me it's good and comforting.
I know that Richard (of RBB) only lives in the 'now' but maybe that's because he wanked a bit too much in his previous life and feels a bit guilty (Catholic guilt which is the worst) about that.
I remember sitting outside on summer nights in Wellington listening to music when I was young.
Through some odd circumstances my brother and I, when we were in our late teens, lived in the family house in Vogeltown while our parents and younger sisters lived in an apartment downtown. Dad had taken over the caretaking job of a Catholic church owned property in Taranaki Street that came with a 3 bedroom apartment on the top floor. He still was able to run his business from there but it required living on-site. I was still in the 6th form at St Pat's and my older brother worked as a printer in Thorndon. It was like an early form of flatting except it was with my brother and may parents were the 'landlords'.

With the freedom from parental overseeing in my 6th and 7th form at school I was able to indulge in music that would otherwise have been frowned on because it was either loud or annoying. I remember playing Family's 'The Weaver's Answer' real loud on Saturday nights while sitting outside on the steps. God knows what the neighbours thought.

Tonight while eating my dinner (on the deck on a pleasant late-summer evening) I put on some 'nostalgia music'.

I chose these two tracks and looped them to play on repeat over and again (for the duration of my meal and the couple of glasses of Pinot Noir I was drinking.

CAN'T YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING?



DO IT AGAIN


They took me right back ..... to 1978.
I was living in Owhiro Bay Road and, in the late summer, on a Saturday night there was some sort of party going on over the road. It was unusual as it had started late and there didn't seem to be a lot of people there. My girlfriend of about that time (we hooked up soon after this) was living in the house and unknown to me was watching the comings and goings on the street and told me afterwards that there were only about 4 or 5 guys who went to the 'party' and the host was the woman who lived opposite. At about 11pm there were only two songs being played, back to back as if on a loop but the technology at that time precluded that so someone was playing each track from albums or singles. Whatever. It was inspired. The beautiful sound from each track travelled out from the house across the road to ours and up and down the valley.

Magic! And I still love the combination of these songs.