Rocking back to the outback

Two stories about rock icons were in the news this morning. In The Sydney Morning Herald, my local Australian paper that I read every day, the story of the suicide of Mick Jagger's girlfriend was in the front page headlines. But it was "Let's Dance: How Bowie played the outback" on the BBC News website that really interested me.

In this article, Ed Gibbs reports on the memories today of those who lived in the very small, outback Australian town of Carinda when David Bowie and his entourage filmed for the video that accompanied his hit song "Let's Dance" in 1983 (2014). Gibbs also says that the towns remaining residents are hoping that the connection with Bowie might stimulate tourist interest that could help to "save it from extinction" (para. 1).

I always preferred David Bowie to the Rolling Stones. The Stones aren't bad, but they just didn't seem as thinking as Bowie, although millions of fans might disagree with me. This story reminded me powerfully of my youthful years in Sydney, where I was living when Bowie's song was released. It was everywhere: in the discos, which were still the rage then, in homes, on the radio, that quaint thing that even older than TV that also provided entertainment and news before the rise of the Internet. As I read the story, I remembered walking down Glebe Point Road, just by Sydney University, one summer evening to a party at a friend's home. The air was warm, the jasmine and other flowers along the quiet street were giving off the perfect fragrance for the evening, and as I approached his door, Bowie's song was setting the party mood.

Town street in Carinda -
click for the full impact.

But the depiction in the photographs and words also reminded me of my family home and the vast, dry interior of Australia. I particularly liked the photograph I've inserted of the street in the town of Carinda. My own home town area in Australia is a bit greener, and we wouldn't have sheep grazing along the town streets, but it all looks so very Australia.

In Woodburn, the nearest town to my family home, there used to be cattle, and the occasional horse, grazing calmly beside the roads. But these days there is a bit more government restriction, and the residents with a cow or two, or a horse in their backyards are not supposed to let them out to range quite so freely. I don't remember, but I suspect that the electricity lines are also all now underground in Woodburn, but these, too, were a fixture of the landscapes I remember from my childhood, as were the grassy areas between road and footpath, with the eucalyptus trees dotting the view in every direction - often complete with a koala or three.

And I'm afraid that with the exception of a few Aussie bands up to around 1990, like Cold Chisel and Men at Work (we all know these great rock groups, right?), I don't really know much of  the last quarter century of popular music, but I have heard of Lady Gaga.

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Reference

Gibbs, E. (2014, March 18). Let's Dance: How Bowie played the outback. BBC News Magazine. Retrieved March 19, 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26577308