“Na, na, Electric Avenue…Electric Avenue,” I sang.

I was in the shower at the time (again). These days I always seem to sing in the shower. Maybe it’s because I’m on my own and know that nobody can hear me. “Electric Avenue” just happened to be on the radio yesterday as I was driving down from the Sunshine Coast; I wondered what the words meant and, during my shower, I was reminded to look it up on Google. Apparently, the lyrics (pasted below) refer to the Brixton Riots in 1981.

During my drive up the coast I lost the local Logan radio station (from down here) and found it was usurped, temporarily, by the Moreton Bay radio station; and driving back, the same thing happened in reverse; however, at some point neither station took precedence totally so I was getting songs and conversations from one station first, and then the other, intermittently. It was quite irritating. Still worse was to come when both stations came through at exactly the same time. Funnily enough, both stations were broadcasting country music, that much was obvious but the overall effect was that of a caterwauling cacophony; I was in the process of trying to turn the radio off (not easy in modern cars) when one song finished and a female voice said:

“Wasn’t that just the most beautiful song?”

I laughed and gave up trying to turn off the radio because I couldn’t find the right knob (if indeed there is one!) and I could not pull in as I was on the motorway. I made do with reducing the volume to almost nothing but I could still hear it, like distant snake charming music. All of a sudden there was an even more peculiar sound. I turned up the radio (that button is very obvious) in order to work out what it was. Would you believe that each of the stations was playing a yodelling song? It was like listening to bad synchronised singing; one highly skilled yodeller from the fifties yodelled for the entire duration of his song whilst the other singer sang of “an echo in the hillside” and yodelled the echo part. Yo-dear!

Do you remember one of my posts from a few days ago about the song, “Sylvia’s Mother”? Well, by strange coincidence, when I was on the phone at my friend Lorelle’s place on Sunday night, my eyes were drawn to the large television screen in the adjacent room; I couldn’t hear the television from such a distance but I could see a photograph of Dr. Hook with the words, “Sylvia’s Mother” in red beside him; and underneath the photograph, in big white capital letters, it read “DR. HOOK IN CALOUNDRA  4TH MAY – BOOK NOW!” If only… and for only $60. Never mind, by then I shall be home in Devon; the sea wall will be as good as new and the trains will have been running for a month; I will be enjoying the spring weather and looking forward to another summer.

Electric Avenue  –  Eddy Grant (released1982)

Down in the street there is violence
And a lots of work to be done
No place to hang out our washing
And I can’t blame all on the sun, oh no
CHORUS:
We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we’ll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we’ll take it higher

Workin’ so hard like a soldier
Can’t afford a thing on TV
Deep in my heart I’m a warrior
Can’t get food for them kid, good God

CHORUS

Oh no…
Oh no…
Oh no…
Oh no…

CHORUS

Who is to blame in one country
Never can get to the one
Dealin’ in multiplication
And they still can’t feed everyone, oh no

CHORUS

Out in the street…
Out in the street…
Out in the playground…
In the dark side of town…

CHORUS

Rock it in the daytime
Rock it in the night …
Writer: Grant, Eddy
Copyright: Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/