FOLK ON THE ROAD – I’LL TAKE THE MUSIC TO GO
By Bill Quinn

The first draft of this article appeared in edition 166 of Trad & Now magazine in October 2024.

In December 2024, it will have been 18 years in elapsed time that I’ve been writing for the national publication: Trad & Now magazine.

It feels like a lot longer.

Which is ironic in some ways, as those 18 years have included some extended breaks for various reasons.

Mostly because there’s a chunk of life from April 2014 to March 2019 when I barely had two brass razoos* to rub together, and I was wandering like a gypsy up and down the east coast of Australia. (Chris Bath from Channel 10 news but then from ABC Sydney and NSW radio dubbed me ‘Bill The Gypsy’ when I called in from the 366th different location and she threw her hands up and gave me the sobriquet.)

* WordPress is suggesting I change that to ‘brass kazoos’.

For four of those years, I was doing what our former LNP government said that we unemployed ne’erdowells must do: if you can’t find a job, move to a location where you can. So I took these clueless, gormless, careless, charmless, unempathetic cretins at their word, and started being a hobo, Boxcar Willie styles at times.

From April 2014, when I left the house and bed of a well-meaning but slightly broken** woman in Greater Sydney, until late March 2019 when I tumbled off a plane in Garramilla (Darwin), I hit the roads and for a time, music took either a backseat or went missing in action all together.

** spinal injury and resultant depression

(Interesting parallel with the experiences of one Myf Warhurst who, in her quirky, music-laden autobiography of sorts, talks about eschewing all music for months and months during Covid lockdowns.)

I bummed around the country living on fumes and in housesits, or backpacker hostels, or couch-surfing on a few isolated occasions when I had to.

I’ll go out on a limb, dear reader, and take an educated guess that if you’re reading this now, music is something you may also turn to in times of great challenges and calls on your emotional resources.

You may need it as a means of healing, as a source of inspiration, as a salve when your heart is breaking, and your spirit is flagging. You may need it to pick you up from being down in the dumps (or the lumps, bumps, and even mumps).

You may know you’re operating on about 18% personal battery power and three hours’ sleep, but you just don’t have the luxury of pulling the duvet back over your head and having a long lie-in on a Sunday morning.

Music can be a great motivator, and I have my key songs, albums, tracks, and excerpts that I know can tap into whatever organs, synapses, or adrenal glands which need some kick-starting for those times when my get-up-and-go has got up and gone.

Here’s a recent example. On Wednesday 9 October 2024, I trudged into Bar Orient in High Street, Walyalup (Fremantle) on Whadjuk Boodja (Greater Perth and surrounds).

To say I was discombobulated is the understatement of the month, but let’s skip ahead to about 7pm as the light was fading – and so was I.

Sporting a not insignificant veranda over the toolshed right now, the $10 parmigiana, chips, and salad and a drink for $10 was not what the doctor ordered, but my doctor in this part of the world is so dropped right now, so who cares what he ordered or orders?

Hint to any service provider but especially in the medical trade: if you ask your clients/patients open questions, stop your fiddle-faddling around and listen listen LISTEN to the answers. And if you need to Google key elements of your prognostication and diagnosis, that’s probably something you shouldn’t do in full view of the patient who’s relying on your expertise.

Spoiler alert: it’s not an ‘oxygenated manic episode’; it’s a combination of recurring bronchiolitis, 30 days (at that point) on the road covering thousands of kilometres, climactic conditions varying from minus one degree centigrade and ice (Goulburn, NSW) to 38 degrees and very little humidity (Goldfields of WA), driving across open plains, through rock and scrub, through the teeth of gales (and the lips of Karens), with all the rubbish and detritus being kicked up that a god, goddess, or other deity can muster to throw at me.

Ok, just while we’re straying into comparative mythologies like Old Norse, Catholicism, homeopathy, crystals, and such, can anyone enlighten me with the background or origins of the following bit of utter tommyrot?

God never gives you more than you can handle.

What utter nonsense. What complete tripe.

Leaving aside the existence or non-existence of a deity or deities – spoiler alert: in our universe, the tens of thousands of gods are ALL the creations of fertile human imagination.

Further, if you can truthfully say you’ve never once ever ever evah felt burdened and bowed down by circumstances and serious problems, then my friend, you have thus far lived a very good – and I would venture a unique – life. And music is surplus to your requirements.

I challenge these holier than thou types to wander into a children’s cancer ward and tell the patients and their families that they’ve been given no more than their invented deity has doled out to them. So dry your eyes and quit your belly-aching.

Where were we? Bar Orient. Corner of High and Henry Streets.

On this occasion, I thought, damn the torpedoes and let’s have a parmi and trimmings and a pinte of Guinness. Listen to some music, have a watch and a singalong to karaoke, and then go home (i.e. my hotel room) and sleep like the dead (no pun intended) for about 18 hours.

What’s the pun that was not intended? I’m currently in Boorloo/Walyalup for my sixth or seventh visit this calendar year because my friend and ex-radio colleague Frank Hodges is not well and has been given a Best Before date or two. Spoiler alert: it’s slated to be this side of Xmas/Festivus.

It is what it is. Life comes at you hard; death comes harder. Growing old bites the big one, but it does often (not always, but often) beat the alternative.

Bar Orient. Still. Sitting in prime position to witness some ‘empty orchestra’ (English equivalent for karaoke) magic, my plans for a mild, enjoyable evening were immediately at risk as I’d put myself in harm’s way. If I were more aware of my surroundings, I may have walked out as quietly and quickly as I walked in.

The harm’s way facilitator? I’ve been travelling for a couple of years or 58 years with a small and later large teddy bear of the same makes and models and maker as Little and Big Ted from Play School.

However, at the zenith (again, no pun intended – three cheers for our back page sponsor) of my recent days on the road – which will be more like 140 days by the time this carousel stops spinning – I walked into a charity shop on Bringelly Rd, Kingswood looking for an ice cube tray.

I walked out with a three foot tall bright yellow duck. An eight buck duck. I had him with me that night in Bar Orient.

A table of people arrived directly to my right and it became fairly clear they were all or mostly on the spectrum. Karaoke is their regular pastime of joy and fun to behold.

And D. in particular was drawn like an arrow to an apple by Duck.i.am.

Long story short, and in answer to her request to us, D. and I and the duck – plus a lot of crowd participation – planned to sing ‘Rubber Ducky’ by Kermit.

But Gypsy Rose who was operating the decks and running the show didn’t have it. She did have ‘Rainbow Connection’ but it wouldn’t play.

Put on the spot with time ticking away, I went for something I’d already sung at that very karaoke joint. My choice was instantaneous with very little thought applied.

So now we have to punt ‘no pun intended’ out over Beach Street, over the train tracks and the Fremantle Passenger Terminal, over Shed E or P or X at the port, over the giraffes looming over the docks where cars of some description have been rolling off a container ship for hours.

There was no malice aforethought. I promise.

We sang, “You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy” with considerable audience participation from the table on the spectrum and many others.

Still a bit wired an hour later, D. and I and a gaggle of very yummy mummies having a local night out, we all did a train wreck code version of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” (only because Rose could not locate “Anti-Hero” on her system).

It wasn’t pretty, but we had fun.

Music: a motivator, a lingua franca, a breaker down of barriers, and a social lubricant to name but a few. And not just to listen to/sing along with. Many of you reading may have all of that and more except that you create not just consume.

It’s currently seven minutes to 0600h on Sunday 13 October 2024 AWST, and I promised Cec Bucello I’d have this dispatched before the cock crows six times. I lied. It’s now 13 minutes past. Meh. He can dock my vast writing fees. Wink emoji.

So, as always, there is no moral nor instruction nor silver bullet/coded message in any of the above. I don’t tell anyone how to live – not even my soon-to-be 28yo son who’s just come back in from the cold after eight long years in his own personal wilderness.

But if you can pick the bones and the cherry stones out of that lot, then happy days, praise the Lawd and pass the ammunition, and you go with grace. I’ll go with Sandrine.

She’s chaud!

Part Two of whatever this was will appear next edition or in an edition occurring after that.

ENDS