So this week had a bit of a monster theme to it with both "The Monster Mash" by Bobby Pickett and Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon. Most of the song videos this week are straight concert presentations with the exception of the Pretenders video Back in Chain Gang and the Beatles Paperback writer. Although the Monster Mash video is so old it is shot in black and white, I think this one get's my vote for the the best video in terms of visuals this week as let's face it, you can never have too many scary monsters in a video albeit the video is pretty corny.

It will quickly dawn on people as I share my list over the next few weeks that I am still mostly stuck in the 20th century in terms of my music. So just to demonstrate that I have just about managed to make it into the 21st century with some of the music I listen to, this is a song released in 2003 (thought it was later than that).

From the time I was born until I left to come to England in 1992, I used to spend every Easter at Barrington Guest house. This was such a lovely holiday for a special set of families who would converge on the guest house every year for the Easter break. Over the years, these same families became great friends as we enjoyed each other's company. During the Easter break we would walk together in some of most beautiful rain forest in the world, ride horses, feed Rosellas that would eat out of your hand or land on your head, compete in a Davis cup tennis tournament, swim in crystal clear rivers (sliding down a natural rock face slippery dip) and attend one of the most amazing country Saturday bush dances complete with a diagonal couple "Strip the Willow" spin. The older teenagers and twenty somethings would then commandeer a tour bus after the dance and sing songs like "American Pie" until the early hours of the morning. It truly gave me many of the most memorable and enjoyable times in my life.

Yet it was always a downer when the holiday was over and we had returned to Sydney. Although there wasn't much sand at Barrington, sometimes you would find something (say mud or a bloody sock from an encounter with a leech) on your shoes that would make you think, "wow I wish I was back there". Over the years I wrote many silly lyrics to famous tunes sometime to perform at school formals or house parties. Yet the comedown from Barrington one year was enough for me to write my own song (I have only ever written two proper songs in my life) which I guess was along similar lines to this Dido classic. For what it is worth, my chorus went: "it's a matter of time, that drives us fast, pushing our future into the past, a holiday with you, passes too soon, leaving us to steal memories while staring at our room."

There is a sad postscript to this story. In 2006 Helen and I were booked into Barrington Guest House. I drove excitedly to the spot pulling up and getting out of the car to be greeted by someone. The conversation went like this:

Me: "Hi we are here to stay at Barrington"
Bemused person: "you not staying here mate"
Me (a little confused): "why?"
Person: "It burnt down last night"

Why did I not see that? Well the outer shell of the guest house was still standing (I now understand the full meaning of the term when they say a house has been gutted). It was only when you got closer you could see the smouldering smoke rising from the interior. Such a tragedy because the guest house was built sometime early in the 20th century which made it a valuable historical artefact by Australian standards.

"For your eyes only Mr Bond." Sean Connery certainly made James Bond into a more comical character but I much prefer the modern protrayal of the spy by Daniel Craig. By far the best James Bond of the lot in my opinion.

Time once again to go back to the early seventies. I remember this tune being on the radio as a very young child. Sadly the video and sound quality of this clip is pretty bad. However, it is a very pretty song.

Video with better audio quality

Yesterday I posted the song "Africa" by Toto. Along with "Eye of the tiger", this song reminds me of a youth camp I attended in 1983. The final song that I associate with this camp is this classic tune by Lionel Richie.

On the camp was some guy whose nickname was "mouse" (can't remember his real name now). Anyway, as was the tradition at these camps, on the final night campers would produce a concert where different groups presented funny sketches or songs etc. We took this song and changed the words so that it was captured the funny events of this particular camp (I'm sure the song we wrote wasn't that funny but when you're an immature 17 year old you think everything you come up with is funny). Anyway the one line from the song I can remember was "All night long, Mouse sang this song." Very witty Wilde (not!).

This song came out in 1995 and is rather ironic because if you're a Christian, you believe that God really did become one of us in the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth born circa 4 BC in Bethlehem. Joan Osborne imagines that if God was one of us, we would have to believe but, in reality, we know what happened to the historical Jesus so her surmise is off the mark somewhat if indeed Jesus was the incarnation of the creator of our universe.

I remember when this song first hit the charts in Sydney in 1989. I really love the guitar in this song and the album Waking Hours is full of top quality songs. This was the main hit tune released for the radio which nicely captures the sentiment that was first captured in the Biblical book Ecclesiates about the seeming meaningless of life's endless daily cycle.

Like the opening of Ecclesiates, "Nothing ever happens" also has some really great poetry in it. I particularly like these lines from the song:

And bill hoardings advertise products that nobody needs
While "Angry from Manchester" writes to complain about all the repeats on TV
Computer terminals report some gains in the values of copper and tin
While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs for the price of a hospital wing.

So on Sunday I cited my first Beach Boys song California Girls. That song stimulated the Beatles to include a little bit of beachboy-style musing over lovely Russian woman.