Bye Bye Grant

I recall a schoolboy coming home
through fields of cane
to a house of tin and timber
and in the sky
a rain of falling cinders*

- from Cattle and Cane

I remember when I first heard this song; I was at my home in the cane paddocks watching Countdown. It was 1983. In between the preening, mincing New Romantic acts Countdown was full of at the time, this video stood out; three uncool-looking people hunched in a tiny shed singing a beautiful melodic song about the things I could see out of my bedroom window. I wasn't sure what to make of it. It was my introduction to the Go-Betweens.

When you grow up in South East Queensland you understand, almost by instinct, that any song you hear on the radio will not refer to anywhere you know. The airwaves are peppered with plenty of place names like California, Berlin, London; Sudan, Japan, Milan and even Yucatan got a guernsey thanks to Ian Dury. Through pop music many of us know the streets and districts of cities we'll never visit. I know Rockaway Beach is in New York thanks to my Ramones records. That my part of the world was not important or interesting enough to inspire songwriters of any worth was for me always a given. This is one of the reasons The Go-Betweens captured my imagination. "Karen" in particular was a regular on the turntables of 4ZZZ when I first moved to the city, and aside from being clunky and quirky in a way I'd never even though music could be, it tells its very ordinary story within the familiar setting of... Brisbane. This might sound like a small thing; it was anything but. Recognising places and references in The Go-Betweens’ songs completely changed the way I saw my city, and therefore myself.

[...]

I just want some affection
I don't want no hoochie-coochie mama
No back door woman
No Queen Street sex thing

[...]

I know this girl
This very special girl
And she works in a library, yeah
Standing there behind the counter
Willing to help
With all the problems that I encounter

Helps me find Hemingway
Helps me find Genet
Helps me find Brecht
Helps me find Chandler
Helps me find James Joyce
She always makes the right choice

[...]

And she stands there in the library
Like a nun in a church does
Like a nun in a church does
She stands there all alone
'Cos she gets me something that I
Just can't get now anywhere else
[...]

- from Karen

The Go-Betweens made Brisbane seem romantic. Or sound romantic, at least. The summery sounds of "Streets of Your Town"... well, those streets are the hilly, tree-lined ones of Bardon or Paddington to me. Streets of verandahed, decorative Queenslanders with tin window hoods, and mango trees in the backyards. Maybe a bright bougainvillea out of control down the side path. Those songs make me sentimental for a Brisbane that only exists occasionally.

For me, the early music of The Go-Betweens will always remind me of my late teens. When I first started to discover a musical world Out There, they sounded different to everything else and refreshingly so. Australian music came in two flavours in the Eighties—rock (cock) or rock (indie)— but the Go-Betweens bravely made gorgeous, sweet songs and were basically run out of the country for it. But they paid no attention to the rest of the world, they just kept doing their lovely thing and their music is still standing today because of it.

Grant McLennan and Robert Forster formed the Go-Betweens in 1977 after meeting as Arts students at the University of Queensland. Grant McLennan died this weekend just gone, aged just 48. Writing this in the Humanities library at UQ―quite possibly where the desirable Karen worked―has a particular poignancy.


* The "rain of falling cinders" refers to the small twists of black gunk that drift about in the sky when sugar cane is burnt prior to harvesting. Also known as Bundaberg snow. It leaves marks on the laundry hanging on the line. It's a very, very evocative image for anyone who grew up around sugar cane.