Marita was reminding me on Saturday of Dragon’s song Young Years (a discussion of various music lyrics that culminated in my car gaining the nickname Black Betty).

Secret meetings at the river’s bend
Simple days when I called you friend
Came a time, we went separate ways — Dragon, Young Years

As it happens last week I had a sudden rush of nostalgia while listening to the radio and they got onto a discussion of “things we miss from our childhood”.

I quite frankly never believed it back then when I was told those days were the best of my life. But since I’ve seen my kids growing up and enjoying their school years, I have been looking back much more fondly on my own time at school. If I had to put my finger on it, it might be the memory of the innocence and the lack of responsibility that I miss the most.

Some of the people I knew back then, I’ve kept in touch with. Others I’ve encountered from time to time on my travels. At least one, tragically, didn’t make it this far.

So I know more-or-less what Raoul M, Mark B, Merlin T, Justine H, Konrad K and Sam V are up to, even if I don’t have time to catch up with some of them very often. I’ve even heard of or from Olivia F (née D), Mark S, Josh H, Conrad L, Stuart/Lisa/Tracy M and Andrew V in the last few years. I know some of them lurk on my blog.

But what ever happened Andrew K, Daniel I, Stephen T, Michael W, David H, Craig B, Matthew S, Ingrid H, Gar S, Josh B, Leon M and all those others who are only a brief entry on the FriendsUnited web site (if that)?

What happened to all those Greek kids that used to be my neighbours? What happened to that other Matthew, the prick who used to pick on me? What about Darren D — did he end up on a farm like he thought, or is he the same guy of that name who is the fire brigade spokesman?

Okay, they’ve FU’d up the FU web site a bit. What’s with having to click through twice to get to the profiles? But some of the people I remember are in here. OMG, this says Undine S has two kids. And Andrew K’s profile shows he’s still the same joker he always was. Stephen P became a pilot just like he wanted. A few people show up in Google, too.

I suppose we’ve all gone off in different directions, scattered across the country and across the planet.

Let’s have that quote from Ben Elton’s Blast from the Past again:

Every golden generation, every fresh-faced group of friends, must statistically contain those who will fall prey to the sad clichés of life. The things they never thought would or could happen to them. Divorce, alcoholism, illness, failure. Those were things that happened to one’s parents’ generation. To adults who no longer had their whole lives before them. It comes as a shock when the truth dawns that every young person is just an older person waiting to happen, and it happens a lot sooner than anyone ever thinks.

Yikes, what a nostalgia overload. I hope I’m not heading to an early mid-life crisis or something.

The school concert was last night. I’m sure I don’t remember us doing these kinds of full-blown all-of-school proper-concert-hall events when I was in primary school. But the kids all seemed to enjoy it. And the bar was open before the event started, to help the parents… uhh relax.

Danny Katz (whose kids go to the same school) wrote a funny piece several years ago about having to rush home from Moorabbin Town Hall to get his daughter’s recorder for the school concert performance of The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Perhaps school management read this article: Moorabbin Town Hall is no longer the venue, The Lion Sleeps Tonight wasn’t on the programme (doesn’t that breach the Education Act?), and the recorders are all transported specially from the school to the concert in special boxes.

The time passed surprisingly quickly, with acts in grade order. Some of the costumes were quite good, especially Adrian, one of the kids’ friends, done up as Gene Simmons from Kiss. Very impressive. Despite cleaning the wax out of my ears especially for the occasion, I couldn’t quite make out some of the song lyrics, but no matter, you expect it at these kinds of events.

Adult crowdpleasers such as Video Killed The Radio Star made an appearance, as did old favourites such as the Flying Purple People Eater. The bit I laughed most at was a play set in medieval times, which featured knights “galloping” around the stage, one of them with banging coconuts Holy Grail-style.

As always the final act was the teachers, prefaced by a rowsing call from the students of: “Teach-ers; clap-clap-clap” (and repeat). This year it was Let’s Do The Timewarp from Rocky Horror. I still find it a bit unnerving to see the staff entrusted with our children’s education being so outgoing, as many of them appear not only to be upstanding citizens, but not quite as extroverted as they appear on-stage. Probably hiding in costumes, masks and make-up helps.

Here is a combined list of my most played 21 songs from both my home PC/iPod, and work PC.

I’ve listed 21 (rather than 20) because I’m going to assume the top one is some kind of computer glitch, since there’s no way I’ve listened to that song more than a couple of times since putting it into iTunes…

There’s a fair bit of OCS on there, probably because when it’s too noisy in the office, I tend to turn to that to drown things out a bit. “July” in particular is good for out-louding the nearby photocopier/printer thing when it’s going full-pelt.

I might note that when I listen to complete albums around the house, I tend to still get the CD out.

If you want to join in and post your list on your blog, make sure your iTunes is synced with your iPod, then sort by Play Count, and do File / Export Song List, which you can export to a text file from which you can chop out the info you want to post.

Word on the street is that if you want to see any movies, do so this weekend, because by the following weekend they’ll have all been swept away by blanket screenings of the bloody Da Vinci Code.

On the train, which do you think there’s more of? Dan Brown books, or iPods?

Dan Brown books are still selling well, but market growth is probably slowing, as just about everybody who would be inclined to read it must have just about finished it by now. Of course, those who weren’t put off by what they read (like I was) might go and buy another one.

iPods are still growing rapidly in number though, and I would think would have a better longer-term outlook.

There don’t seem to be that many people reading Dan Brown while listening to an iPod, though.

Saw a guy on the train with an old-style portable CD player. ‘Cos, you know, digital music from real CDs have a warmth that MP3/AAC on iPods just can’t match…

Watched WarGames again the other night. As Marita commented, no wonder geeks like it — geeks get to save the world. (Though they almost destroyed it in the first place.) Call me slow, but I hadn’t noticed before that one of the missile operators at the start is played by none other than the late John Spencer, better known as Leo McGarry in the West Wing.

Quick review: Foreigner by C J Cherryh — I have to admit, I found this book hard-going initially. I think it’s the style of it versus the style of my reading. I don’t tend to read for long periods of time. It’s generally 15 minutes on the train, rather than an hour or two tucked up in bed, and this book didn’t suit that. But particularly towards the end, it was rivetting stuff. Apart from what would happen to the human character, his whole thinking of himself and the other humans compared to the… well, alien nature of the aliens was very interesting.

Tickets for the Ben Harper concert have suffered from a similar fate as Belle & Sebastian:

The concert is on a “school night”
plus
expensive at $79.95 plus booking fee
equals
Stuff it, just buy the CD, old man.

(And wait to see if they schedule a second concert on a better night.)

For a while earlier this month one of the hot email memes going around was a Number One In History web site, though it’s been taken offline now. Happily there’s another site which is online, and even better, it can tell you the number one hits in Australia, the USA and the UK.

Like many others I checked what song was number 1 (in the USA) on the day I was born. It was “War!” by Edwin Starr. Ah, now there’s a good, worthy hit record. I was so inspired by this that I invested A$1.69 and bought it off iTunes. (The Australian number 1 the week I was born was Simon & Garfunkel’s “El Condor Pasa”, which I have somewhere on an old S&G compilation CD.)

Sadly my kids’ birth week number ones are rather less inspiring. Jeremy’s was some sappy Celine Dion number (”My Heart Will Go On” — puke-o-rama). Isaac’s was Merril Bainbridge (”Mouth”), the name of whom is familiar, but I can’t place the tune. (And it’s not on iTunes.)

The site from the email was taken offline by request from Billboard, which owns the US chart data. They want people to pay for archived chart information. If I were in charge of the record industry had any brains, they’d put up an official free “Number 1 this week” archive web site with direct links into iTunes and other online music retailers so you could buy the song with a few clicks. Precisely this kind of thing is what iTunes is designed for.

But hey, a lot of stuff would be different if I ran the world.

Tagged by Rae: Seven songs I am listening to right now and a lyric or two that sounds good

New Mistake, by Jellyfish — I have no idea what this song is about, but I like it. Got hooked on this band after seeing the music video for it (which is just as confusing) on Rage, years ago. As a marketing tool, sometimes music videos work.

So Father Mason, clutching his crucifix
Baptised the baby in whisky and liquorice
What a lovely way
Drowning sins and tooth decay

The Circle, Ocean Colour Scene — about a circle of friends. I got hooked on this band after one of their songs was used on a TV show. That works as a marketing tool too.

Saturday afternoon
The sunshine falls like wine
Through your window

Good Day Ray, Powderfinger — after all these years, the whole Internationalist album is still a favourite. Now the kids have got hooked on this particular song, as have I. It’s been played something like 25 times on the iPod that Jeremy’s had only four weeks.

You, you’ve fallen down the stairs again
You might have to take it easy

Love Letter, Professor Ratbaggy — the most accessible of PR songs (it’s Paul Kelly in disguise) and probably the only one to get a guernsey at a PK gig. I snuck it onto a CD of music for my sister’s wedding, years ago. (I also tried to get on The Proclaimers’ Let’s Get Married, but with all the classical music they’d ask for, it wouldn’t fit.)

You’re every rich man’s prayer
You’re every poor boy’s dream
I wanna make a deep connection
Between you and me

Second Class Citizen, Area 7 — your standard call of justice for youth. Maybe I’m a bit old for it, but it’s something I try to recall when seeing the yoof out and about. And when I see yet another profile of Barry Humphries in the paper.

Well I don’t know what they think we do with our time
Try to tell them that being young’s not a crime
We try to tell them but they just don’t care,
This f—ed-up system’s so unfair

Song 2, Blur — it’s pure enjoyable unadulterated noise.

Woo hoo!

Boy with the Arab strap, Belle and Sebastian — theme from Teachers, but highly enjoyable in its own right.

Everyone suffers in silence a burden
The man who drives minicabs down in Old Compton
The Asian man
With his love hate affair
With his racist clientele

I’m not going to specifically tag anybody, but if you want to have a go, leave a comment or trackback.