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.