Early 2024 Fossicking Trip – Part 14, Music, Beaches, Stones, Thursday 29 February

On my fossicking trips, I look for stones, I take photos of stones, I write Posts about stones, and I listen to music. I listen to music in the car, travelling long distances between cities and driving short trips between accommodation and beaches, and back. I listen to music in earphones on the beach. I listen to music back at my accommodation, as I look through newly-collected finds and as I write Posts about them. I listen to music in bed at night, reading a book and waiting for sleep. Music is important to me.

Often, listening to music months later can bring back to memory a particular fossicking trip when I first discovered a song. So whenever I hear Gregory Alan Isakov’s “San Luis”, it takes me back to 2023’s “Southern Sojourn” and the wistful loneliness that goes along with being away from home. This has been captured in a Post from April 2023, “Somewhere In-Between” – Another Song From My Fossicking Holiday. Sometimes a song becomes associated with a stone or type of stone. And when I play Mary Black’s “The Moon and Saint Christopher”, I think of the green stones of the southern coast, thanks to the Post I wrote in 2019 about the poetry of an Orepuki girl, Kay McKenzie Cooke, Green and Black: Green Stones and Mary Black’s “The Moon and Saint Christopher”.

This trip, I have already come across two new pieces of music that I have listened to a number of times, and will listen to again soon. I discovered them because I starting searching through “Like a Version” on YouTube. This is a series by Australian youth radio station “Triple J”, featuring Australian and international musicians playing cover versions of popular pieces. The covers are sometimes very impressive, and I have previously enjoyed Cannons’ cover of Harry Styles’ “Golden” and DMA’s cover of Cher’s “Believe”.

The first new piece I have been listening to is a cover of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Australian pop duo Royel Otis (lyrics at end of Post).

The duo, guitarist Royel Maddell and vocalist Otis Pavlovic, are joined by a drummer and percussionist for the song. [Maddell was often physically sick with anxiety before gigs so he decided not to show his face on stage or in photos, retreating behind a curtain of pink hair.] This song does not have ready associations with fossicking but I found myself on the beach, dodging incoming waves and getting wet gumboots and thinking to myself, “It’s murder on the wet stones!” And the energy of the music mirrors the energy of the breaking waves. And as for that interesting stone about to be covered by an incoming wave, in the words of the song, “If you think you’re getting away, I will prove you wrong!”.

The second YouTube clip from “Like a Version” that I have been listening to is King Stingray’s cover of Coldplay’s “Yellow” (lyrics at end of Post). This one is more unusual, and less similar to the original – as signaled by the opening with the banjo and didgeridoo and clapstick, and the aboriginal vocalisation, kind of more monotone than Chris Martin. King Stingray is a rock band from Northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. It performs songs with lyrics in both English and Yolŋu Matha. King Stingray was Australia’s Breakthrough Artist of the Year in 2023. I have previously been impressed with the blending of aboriginal and western popular music in the works of Yothu Yindi (see my Post “Maralitja” Crocodile Man). Two of King Stingray’s founding members are relatives of Yothu Yindi musicians.

I used the original of Coldplay’s “Yellow” in a very early Post (June 2016) to accompany a couple of photos of a partly-yellow stone. I have since come across a lot more yellow stones, and particularly love the yellow quartzites I find on Seadown Beach near Kakanui. “Look how they shine for you… and they are all yellow.”

LYRICS

“Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Royel Otis Cover

If you think you’re getting away, I will prove you wrong
I’ll take you all the way, boy, just come along
And let me hear me you say, hey

It’s murder on the dancefloor
But you better not kill the groove
It’s murder on the dancefloor
But you better not kill the groove, DJ
Gonna burn this goddamn house right down

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
About your kind
And so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so
Just have to play

If you think you’re getting away, I will prove you wrong
I’ll take you all the way, boy, just come along
And let me hear you say, hey

It’s murder on the dance floor
But you better not kill the groove
It’s murder on the dance floor
But you better not kill the groove, DJ
Gonna burn this goddamn house right down

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
There may be others
And so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so
Just have to pray

If you think you’re getting away, I will prove you wrong
I’ll take you all the way, boy, just come along
And let me hear you say, hey

It’s murder on the dance floor
But you better not kill the groove
It’s murder on the dance floor
But you better not kill the groove, DJ
Gonna burn this goddamn house right down…

*******

“Yellow” by Coldplay
King Stingray cover

Look at the stars, look how they shine for you
And everything you do
And they were all yellow

I came along, I wrote a song for you
And everything you do
And they were all yellow

Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
You know, you know I love you so
You know I love you so

Dhuwalana
Djutawa Bayini Manda
Dela Daylulu
And they were all yellow

I drew a line, I drew a line for you
And everything you do
And it was all yellow

Your skin, oh, yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
You know, you know I love you so
You know I love you so

Ngathi Wilawilayun
Dela Daylulu
Garray Dhowany
Ngathinana warwuyurrunana
Garray
Dela Daylulu
And it was all yellow

*******

Part 15 in this Series reports on a 90 minute fossick at Gemstone Beach. The Series Index is here.