How did I
get this title? I was on You Tube intending to play ‘Tom Thumb’s Blues’ when I
saw a video for ‘Please Please Me’, which was possibly the first ‘45’ that I
bought in 1963. (The other ‘contender’ for ‘First 45’ is ‘Like I’ve Never Been
Gone’ by Billy Fury, which was in the charts around the same time.) Anyway, as
I was playing ‘Please Please Me’, I noticed a BBC documentary about the making
of the album, which I started to watch. Various British musicians had assembled
at Abbey Road to play the album in the same order, and the first singer was
Gabrielle Aplin. After listening to her start to sing the first song, I looked
for an album to listen to – ‘English Rain.’ I’ve forgotten the name of the
Beatles’ song she was playing. Is it ‘There’s A Place?’
Now I’m
playing ‘English Rain’ as I write, and I liked the title, so I’m using it to
inspire me. Is there any difference between English rain and Australian rain?
No! Rain is rain, but there is a difference between how the two countries’
weather forecasters interpret ‘rain.’ English weather forecasters tell the
truth. If it is going to rain, they say it is going to rain. But in Australia,
weather forecasters see a prediction of rain as an affront, particularly at weekends,
so whether ‘rain’ means ‘drizzle’ or ‘rain’ means week-long thunderstorms with flash flooding,
they only every refer to it as ‘showers!’
I’ve seen Australian showers change Goodlet Street, outside my window
into a flash flood.
I’ve tired
of ‘English Rain’ and I’m playing Highway 61 Revisited now, which I’ve never
heard before. Actually, this is Antar playing ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ I know
‘Tom Thumb’s Blues’ is on this album. I like playing the different versions of
this song sometimes – The Grateful Dead, Bryan Ferry, Nina Simone, Linda Ronstadt
– I love this song enough to listen to them all. I’d never heard it until a
couple of weeks ago. How did I get to hear it? I think I was playing ‘Colours’
by Donavon, and another version of that song followed, and the singer also did
‘Tom Thumb’s Blues.’ It reminds me of the way I first heard ‘The Girls in Their
Summer Clothes’ by Bruce Springsteen,
another song that is always playing in my mind. I first heard it in the toilets
at the Royal Exhibition Hotel where they have the ‘best’ sound in the pub! I
listened for the title and then I Googled it on my phone.
Now Bob
Dylan’s ‘It Takes A Lot To Laugh’ is playing (another song I’ve never heard
before) and I liked that title so much I’ve added it to ‘English Rain.’ In my
nostalgic mind, ‘English Rain’ is a gentle mist over the green fields of my
youth. (I don’t think ‘Green fields of my youth “works” but i’ll leave it in
there!) I got used to living in England again, learning to accept the long
autumn/winter/start of spring, as a fair bargain for end of
spring/summer/September. I remember Mum once telling me that she hated the
endless ‘grey days’ and I remember too, once waiting outside the terminal at
Heathrow for Mum and Dad to pick me up one grey, chill, dank, damp, December
morning, and despite long trousers, pullover and jacket, I still shivered. Mind
you, once I had bought a duffle coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, I was OK. ‘Long
Johns’ worked well too, even under summer weight trousers.
They are all
gone now, Mum, Dad, Nana, ‘Sandy’, and they would still be gone if I had stayed
in England, but I still feel guilty for splitting the family up. Dave the
trailblazer? I have always been the follower. Even Mum called me a ‘spectator’
once. But back in 1978, I came to Australia on my own, and I know I was
probably the least prepared migrant in the history of (white) Australia! I’d
never lived away from home (apart from three months in Norwich when I was
nineteen, but let’s not go there, not now, leave ‘Highway A11 Revisited’ for
another day. I like the title, though!)
Perhaps I’m
too hard on myself because here I am thirty seven years later, living on my
own, mostly happy, mostly coping. I know too that Seamus, Darren, Mark and all
the young English/Irish guys I know in the Trinity made the same decision as me.
It’s the same for Alex, back in Belgrade to see the rest of her family, and all
the other migrants to Australia. Sod the guilt!
Ends.
