MUSIC MEMOIR
Windows Wound Down, Subwoofer Up to Eleven
The driving songs that turn me into a teenage tearaway
The Australian comedy music act Axis of Awesome had a once heard, never unheard song about the kind of idiot driver in love with their own musical taste who ‘when they drive through town tonight, cranks the volume when they get to the lights’.
Like the rumbustious Doug Anthony All Stars before them, they had a typically antipodean bluntness to their humour which seared a warning message into the listener’s brain: don’t be that guy!
Sometimes, though, you just can’t help it. There are certain tunes that simply hotwire your id when behind the wheel of a car, summon up the pitchfork-wielding devil mouse over your right shoulder and shout ‘THIS ONE GOES TO 11!’
The decades of hard-earned maturity go up in tyre smoke, the responsible middle-aged citizen morphs into Wayne’s buddy Garth Algar, and suddenly the whole town needs to be treated to a rock karaoke on wheels. I try to resist the urge at least until beyond the church house, gin house, school house and outhouse of the city limits.
But when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go, right?
There are plenty of potential triggers to my own personal wild thing that will…
