Day 12: 13 Songs that changed Darren's life

Day 12 is a mammoth production, with Sir Darren of Canberra iving us his Magus Opus. OH MY GOD what a can of worms did we open here!?! Enter if you dare, return if you can. Just channel a bit of John Cusack, rub you old vinyl LP's together and say, "there's no place like home" 3 times and you should be fine. Sort of.

"It's been a while in production, but I think I've finally managed to complete a sane list of 13 songs that changed my life, I've had to make some tough choices, leaving some songs out of my list that I'd previously thought were shoe ins, and I've had to create a number of rules to assist me in choosing the final 13, like "I'm not to include songs that were included in mix-tapes created by ex-girlfriends, nor am I to include songs that were attached to the 80's Christian music scene, and songs that refer to , have been covered or written by John Farnham have also been eliminated from my song reference database. I've also decided that Icehouse's "Man of Colours", 1927's "If I Could", Richard Marx "Lonely Nights", Ratcat's "Baby Baby" and Shakin Steven's don't really qualify as life-changing songs, unless I'm speaking about an earlier life or a life lived in a parallel universe...

1. Junior - Robert
I grew up going to Easter Camps with a guy named Steve Pederson, (Ped) he was a few eyars older than me, as were most people back then and played the guitar extremely well, he'd be a part of a number of bands for the years to come, I still remember him in a cover band that played at the Findon each week and how the songs they played really didn't suit him. Ped was also a youth worker in the church, for a while there we were both youth workers at the same time, but for the most part he was one of my seniors, a mate and a mentor of such. Long story short he stopped working for the church, probably one of the healthiest things for him, they'd treated him like crap and he and some close mates started playing as a group named "Greasy Spoons" after some playing around they got a residence at The Clyde on Unley Road in Adelaide. We'd turn up each week on a Thursday for Greasy and Toss The Boss and beer, Andrew, Shane and myself and whoever else decided to join us, and we did that for a long time. They'd move to the New Yorke Bar n Grill, to The Oxford and The Old Lion as well as a number of other places over time before finding residency at the Gov Hindmarsh. By then the covers band "Greasy Spoons" had changed name and were now known as "Junior" and were now primarily an originals band.

I blame these guys for my beer drinking, but I also thank them for giving me somewhere to go, a home base if you'd like for the years between 17 and 29, wherever they played I'd be with a number of mates drinking a Pale Ale and singing to tunes that have become as much a part of my spiritual life as they have my music collection. Pete, Justin and Ped, the trio who make up Junior were also traveling members of the TOLLS community, I'd turn up to support them, but also to keep the connections going, even recently they played at the Illawarra Folk Festival which I attended and recalled times past and new songs being written. Words cannot describe how much i love these guys, or how much I owe them, I still remember listening to one of their cds before my interview for this job in Canberra. When I listen to their songs i can close my eyes and taste the Pale Ale and smell the city of Adelaide.

2. Counting Crows - Round Here
My Counting Crows obsession can also be partially blamed on Ped and the Junior boys, and anyone else I grew up with, I've always been a huge Crows fan, I've been cut twice due to concert cancellations but have been lucky enough to see them play in Adelaide once. Just before I moved to Canberra I purchased a couple of tickets to the Crows gig and took my brother, we sat up in the mezzanine of the Theatre as everyone ran downstairs, from on high we sat there with our feet up, drinking a beer, relaxed and listened to some of the music that has defined my adulthood. One of the more amusing scenes of the night was the Piano Accordion solo with about 50 screaming teenagers.

One of the reasons I find choosing songs so hard is that the cd that Round Here came from has followed me around since it was released, each song is embedded in my head so much that choosing only one from the cd is almost impossible. I love the Crows, I remember standing up on stage at the Clyde back in the days trying to get the lyrics to Goodnight Elisabeth out of my mouth while the Junior guys played away.

Round here were carving out our names
Round here we all look the same
Round here we talk just like lions

3. Faithless - God Is A DJ

This is my church
This is where I heal my hurts
It's a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It's in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends

Faithless have been one of my spiritual retreats for a number of years now, I used to "DJ" the services for The Other Late Late Service in Adelaide, SA and I'd regularly slip back and find a Faithless track that fitted a theme, or a time in the service, the many remixes of their tracks make it easy to find something to play. I used to walk into Ovingham UCA by myself and pump up the volume on the speakers, light a candle and lay in the centre of the church with Faithless or Radiohead pumping through the speakers as loud as I could allow for the time of day.

This song in particular has become an anthem of mine, for in times where church wasn't actually the place where I healed my hurts, in fact it was a place that actively encouraged, brought out and created hurts for me the music became a place where I could seek God out, that I could find healing in between the beats and rhythm of the music. If I could, I'd choose the entire Faithless back catalogue as a part of the songs that changed my life, even today I've found myself listening to them live on a dvd and hearing words that pull me towards the holy one.

4. Radiohead - The Bends
It'd been a while since Church made sense to me, I'd worked for it for a number of years, I'd seen all my friends leave it and I'd been hurt by it and people within it badly, I so didn't want to be there but I knew there was something more, I'd been arguing with God for ages, and with myself and my parents and, with everyone else around me, how could people in the church hurt me and my friends so bad, how could I get over it, how could I move on, where was a place that I could get away with asking these questions. It was funny that around that time in my life I bumped into a crew of people who I'd known for a while but never really connected with, they'd all been in the Scripture Union crew, a scene that I wasn't too familiar with and a man that was heavily involved int he group Geoff Boyce. These guys had got to the point that SU church wasnt working for them, real church wasn't working, for a few of them it never had, for a number of them they were as angry if not moreso than I was, this was the beginning of the TOLLS community in Adelaide.

I remember sitting in the church, images being reflected everywhere and the music's lyrics shining on the screens "Where do we go from here? The words are coming out all weird. Where are you now when I need you?" I fell in love with the people, the space, the music and the song immediately, it was screaming out everything I'd been feeling for ages. I think that the song and the TOLLS community, and the rest of the cd "The Bends" by Radiohead were a major part of my sorting out my faith, learning how to lament and to grieve properly and how to put words to my feelings. I love this song to this very day and pump it through my house whenever I can, yet I've realised that I can't drive with Radiohead on the stereo, just doesn't work...

5. Sigur Ros - Olsen Olsen
I've outted myself as a Radiohead fanatic, so it wouldn’t be hard to believe that I found Sigur Ros due to an interview with Thom Yorke a number of years ago in which he named them as his favourite band of the time, they'd started touring with the band and released a cd titled "Ágætis byrjun." I'd listened to ambient music before this, I'd used a lot of Moby and people like Brian Eno, but this album was something different, it was like I'd been hit smack in the face with the most beautiful sound in the world. I bought Ágætis byrjun and a couple other cds that they'd put out and started to play them in church a lot, even now I find myself mixing their songs onto cds for trips to art galleries and beaches and meditations. Olsen Olsen is one of those tracks from Ágætis byrjun that I could find a download of, I think the entire cd has to be taken as one track, but If I have to choose one I thought I’d choose one that others could listen to if they wanted.

I absolutely love these guy's stuff, i used to wonder what they were singing about, but quickly learnt that I don't need to know, all I need to know is that it's beautiful and I can be happy with that. Once again I'd find myself at Ovingham UCA with a candle burning and Sigur Ros blasting through our makeshift stereo speakers, I miss that space, it's hard to do that in a unit without having the cops knock on your door...

6. U2 - When Love Comes To Town
I guess I couldn't put together a list without including U2, this song was one that regularly appeared in quiet time reflections at Easter Camps back when I was 14/15, I remember sitting in the Macclesfield campsite Chapel with the song playing in the background and holding a journal that had a number of questions to answer. I grew up with people who loved U2 and in the end I grew up to love them too, I think that while other tunes may have had more effect on me than When Love Comes To Town it's probably the first U2 song that I remember hearing, really hearing and paying attention to. I think this song was like the first kiss in a long love affair with the band, it's where I realised that music was more to me than just something to listen to, it was a spiritual experience.

7. Mum - Will The Summer Make Good For All Our Sins?
I fell in love with Sigur ros and went hunting for bands that had a similar sound, these guys are also from Iceland and are also signed to FatCat Records and also play ambient electro melodic music. While the music that Mum creates is possibly a little more melodic than Sigur Ros they have the same effect on me as when I listen to many of the Ros tracks. I add these guys to my list because I've seen them live, while I've missed Sigur Ros on each of their tours. I remember going to Fowlers Live to catch Mum one night in Adelaide, I had some other friends going and we stood in a hall and listened to the most beautiful sounds being created live in front of us.

I caught the taxi only half the way home that night and walked the rest of the way because I needed time to be alone with the ringing in my ears, the concert was a life changing experience, I never thought that music like that could be created live, and for a few friends of mine it's the closest we've ever been to being at church together.

8. Ben Harper – Walk Away
Ben Harper has been the friend I've needed during a number of relationship breakups, this song's kept me company for more than a few weeks of my life, and if I had to choose one of his songs that has changed my life this'd be it, although there are oh so many more songs that he's written that I find myself drawn to during cold nights alone.

It's also a song that I've learnt to play on the guitar more times than i'd care to remember.

9. Eat The Menu/The Mercy Bell – Always
Another independent band, and one that got the royal arse when they signed to a record company that got them to record but refused to release their album, yes I'm pretty pissed about this, they were great. Eat The Menu, or The Mercy Bell as they came to be known as were members of TOLLS way back in the beginning, they'd play live music throughout the gigs, it was the first church service that I recall having a band that didn’t sing songs like Shine Jesus Shine, they were a band to help the service take form, they didn't lead singing, although as we knew lots of their songs singing was something that we'd do regularly. The group did a number of School Seminars and also played at our regular TEAR gig "Stuff Mother Wouldn't Let Us Do In The Kitchen" with another friend's band "Dewey Del." The band was made up of a number of really talented people, some of who were related, Butterfly Boucher was amongst the crew and played the bass guitar, the last time I saw her she was supporting Sarah Mclachlan on her Australian tour...

I go back to the Mercy Bell cds regularly, and as I lived with another Boucher for a couple of years in a share house I managed to collect some of their unreleased material that I'm happy to say I also get to sit down and listen to on the odd occasion. These guys mark a time of my life when my concepts of church was changing, but they also marked the time that I decided to get into High School Chaplaincy.

10. The Eels - My Beloved Monster
Heh, well...

There was this girl, we met at a camp, we became best friends, stayed that way for years, I'd been through 3 or more of her ex relationships, we'd talk about everything and anything and there were times where something could have happened between us but didnt, due to some sort of cruel chivalrous gene god gave me, we knew everything about each other, she was seeing this guy and had mentioned marriage once or twice.

And yes, I was in love with her, had been forever, the kind of love that meant I was happy just as long as we still talked and laughed and would go for walks etc etc etc... yes, shoot me now.

Anyhow, we were at a camp and she was wondering why I was in a down mood, I'd earlier told her that after camp I thought we needed to have some time apart as I needed to "do some things" you see, I'd recently turned 21 and that night we got oh so close to kissing that I freaked (she was seeing someone and wanting to marry him at the time) so I did the only thing a man knows to do in such a situation, run, and run as fast as one can. Well, it was that or beat up the other guy and run off with the woman in your arms, something that I could have done, he was pretty scrawny... but that wasn't me.

So, where was I? oh yes, camp... She dragged me into her car one night and had a go at me for saying I needed some time alone, how she and I were best friends and whatever was going on we could handle blah blah blah blah...

Oh, sorry, I'm a bad story teller, backstep about 2 hours. We were playing a wide game at night, I'd taken it a little too seriously, as I tend to do and ran into a tree branch, the eventuating black eye and scratch to the iris sent me to hospital where they put this gooey yellow liquid in my eye to help it repair itself.

So yeah, in the car, tears, yellow, gooey tears staining shirt etc etc I tell her that I loved her, she doesn’t seem surprised, we talk and end up knowing I was gonna still spend some time apart for a bit, even if its' a week or two. I bought a Ford Cortina that week, placed a brand new stereo unit in it and went on a road trip, but I bought the new EELs cd "Beautiful Freak" to keep me company, went to Victor Harbour, ate pizza, drank scotch, listened to the cd lots of times, slept in a tent...

Oh and yes, we dated for 2 and a bit years until she ripped my heart out and stabbed it with a fork several times when she went out with a guy from University, she's now married to another guy who I think is a git, (but I never said that). I'm not sore at all...

11. Bruce Cockburn – Child of The Wind

Little round planet
In a big universe
Sometimes it looks blessed
Sometimes it looks cursed
Depends on what you look at obviously
But even more it depends on the way that you see

Tell you the truth I've probably only heard this song 3 times, but the lyrics above have been a part of my life for longer than I can recall, Paul Turley wrote them on the TOLLS fridge ages ago, and they became a part of our story, every now and then I find myself quoting it without even thinking in a prayer, a story, a conversation... Bruce is like that though, he can effect you with one little line which is why we used to call him Saint Bruce, Paul used to find any opportunity to get me to play one of his songs during church, and as much as I resisted it back then I find myself drawn to Bruce’s music more and more as time goes by.

12. Violent Femmes – Blister In The Sun
Well, this song has permanently lodged itself into my subconscious, I'll start singing it without notice, it'll be playing on my guitar during church without me even thinking, yes it's one of those songs. I love the Femmes, always have, and I remember many a night's events being turned from boring to eventful as a couple of us break out the guitars and start hammering out the chords to this song, heck, I played it at a camp only last week...

This is my essential song of my adolescence.

13. Smashing Pumpkins – Landslide
An ex used to love Fleetwood Mac, which I found a tad disturbing, but I remember listening to the radio one day (well before her and I met) and hearing Billy Corgan's voice singing along to a beautiful rendition of Landslide and I was converted, not only to the song but to the Pumpkins. A number of years later managed to hunt down the cd single with Billy singing the song on it. I even learnt to play this song on the guitar for her and still plonk it on the old player every now and then and remember back to the days before yet another woman decided to trample over my heart...

heh heh, well...

Seriously though I hunted for this single for years before I finally found it in a cd store in Melbourne, how did it change my life? It was on the first mix tape I made for her...

Honourable mentions, (let's face it only left out because Jon wants 13 songs, not 18)

• Billy Bragg – Sexuality

I remember playing this song AS LOUD AS I POSSIBLY COULD as I drove into the SA Synod meetings that were talking sexuality and leadership, it was one of those things that kept me alive during those meetings, I'd Drive out with the song "All You Fascists Are Gonna Loose" playing even louder...

• Things of Stone And Wood – Share This Wine

TOSAW have been one of those bands that keep making appearances thoughtout my life, this song was the first song that Ped taught me on the guitar and it's one of the best road trip songs in the world.

• Sinead Oconnor - Black Boys on Mopeds

I used to sit at a mates house listening to all his dark cds and singing along, we used to just turn off the lights and hit play, Sinead was one of those chicks that we played a lot, this song is lodged somewhere in my subconscious as well. I still miss doing that, he had a great cd collection.

• Ani Difranco – Dialate

Took Jess, (the Fleetwood Mac chick) to see Ani Difranco live in Adelaide, blew my mind away, Ani's phenomenal, actually I think this was one of my first live gigs I remember going to.

• Paul Kelly – God’s Hotel

I remember this playing during a communion service at Theological College, Andrew Dutney played it for us and I fell in love with it and Paul Kelly's music at that time, was probably the first time I remember feeling at home at college, I remember Sue Wickham and I walking around handing out the communion elements saying "have more of the body of Christ" as we've been emphasising the feast and provision aspect of the story of the last supper at the time, we had a number of loaves to share...

• 
  

Removed due to being included on mix tapes created by ex girlfriends:

• Sarah Mclachlan - Shelter


• Sting - A Thousand Years


• Simon and Garfunkle - Kathy's Song


• Anything by Lisa Loeb


• Anything by Tori Amos

Removed due to their connection to the 80's and 90's Christian music scene:

• * Anything by Amy Grant


• Anything by Michael W Smith


• * Anything by David Meece


• Anything by Stryper


• Anything by Petra


• * Anything by Steve Grace

* = I went to a concert and bought a shirt...

Immediate disqualification because of its involvement with The Big Chill (High Fidelity Joke)

• Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want"
  

Now, if you've made it this far and are not related to Darren at all, congratulations! You've earned yourself a stiff drink and a good lie down...