Houndog by Cold Chisel |
|
Stephen Andrew
Summer of 1982. Back seat of a Mini 850. Somewhere along the Hume Highway, heading south to Melbourne.
I’m in the back seat of my mate’s Mini 850 and the pivotal song on Cold Chisel’s most potent album has just exploded from a Phillips single speaker portable cassette player.
The band is diving down and collectively colliding with the opening chord, a rocket-fuel-drenched G major, belted out twice in quaver time like a couple of depth charges. Blam-blammmmmmmmm. Drum sticks burr the kit, slicing up the held chord, filling the fading blast, before, again, once more – Blam-Blammmmmmmmm. Snare, kick and toms are chopped at and belted, conjuring up the sound of a falling, of a barely controlled tumble, of some sort of semi-collapse. The expected third volley doesn’t arrive. Instead the song is righted by a scream of wrenching electric guitar strings atop of a descending, blues-based band riff and bolted to the bedrock by bass and keyboard.
Then the vocals, wheezed in serrated syllables:
Hump dat coff-in up ‘round one more bend
These words are repeated, like the G major intro, once more, in classic blues form, just in case you missed it first time.
Hump dat coff-in up ‘round one more bear-air-end
And I’m in a coffin, and it’s being thrown and bounced down the highway, all black tarmac and spent shock absorbers, motor ringing out its highest falsetto note, three heads a-bobbin’ in time. We are encased in a faded, second-hand, off-cream coloured, gear-box buggered, unpredictable Mini 850, heading home after a fruitless spur-of-the-moment trip to Wodonga.
We are somewhere in the middle of summer: Pete, my best mate; Shu, his best girl; and me. No bags or changes of clothes. No tent, no Jaffle iron or pots. No sunscreen. Nothing to drink. No food.
If ya head needs a bandage, try a roadhouse open sandwich
Pete, the only one with a licence, drives. I’ve unfolded my skinny six foot frame sit into the back seat. Shu rides shotgun.
I try not to think of my unrequited love for Shu. My feelings are known to all but bounded by a deep and mutual platonic affection. The three of us are mates and there is something wonderful about this trio, for all of us, I believe. Still, I catch myself staring too long at the sunlight on her hair, or laughing too loud at one of her jokes, and feel the sharp pierce of an unbridgeable distance. Rules around this are unspoken and understood. She’s Pete’s partner. I’m his mate. She is my friend. Full stop.
All the way up yesterday’s highway we played various mix tapes: works of art, built with utmost care and planning. On the return trip though, the compilations are replaced by my copy of the just released Circus Animals by Cold Chisel. It was, (and still is), a perfect road album, full of the band’s sharpest playing and most impassioned performances. For the first time in the studio, the band had found their sound.
As we head south and the mercury heads north, strange bubbling sounds emanate from under the car’s tiny bonnet. The radiator boils – once, twice, twenty or more times. The staccato journey is spent with six eyes glued to the temperature gauge.
A ritual develops. We stop every few clicks down the road, pile out, put the Phillips tape player on the roof of the wheezing 850 and wait for the radiator to calm and settle. Houndog sittin’ by the side of the road. Then we dance in the dust to heat of Houndog and the rest of Circus Animals. Sometimes I sing screaming into an invisible microphone, bending over like Barnesy. Or there are air guitar solos. Or perhaps the roof of the car doubles as Don Walker’s keyboards. The whole scene shimmers in a smelt of sweat, hot metal, steam and melting tar. Then we refill the radiator and get back in the coffin.
I got dog’s disease and asphalt on my shoes
The tape player’s bank of red Eveready batteries had wilted by day’s end, leaving the last part of the trip in a haze of exhausted, dehydrated silence.
Houndog is a song about the hell that the road can turn into when touring as a band, about restlessness, identity, and getting lost in the sway of perpetual (e)motion. For me, it also carries the essence of a time of wanderlust, of rudderless stop/start movement through unemployment, uncertainty, unrequited love, heat, hope and the wide open roads of seemingly infinite directions. Wandering around and waiting around. Feeling fantastic. Feeling frustrated. Not yet a man in no man’s land.
And in the end / It’s the motion is its own reward / It’s just the motion
Summer of 1982. Back seat of a Mini 850. Somewhere along the Hume Highway, heading south to Melbourne.
I’m in the back seat of my mate’s Mini 850 and the pivotal song on Cold Chisel’s most potent album has just exploded from a Phillips single speaker portable cassette player.
The band is diving down and collectively colliding with the opening chord, a rocket-fuel-drenched G major, belted out twice in quaver time like a couple of depth charges. Blam-blammmmmmmmm. Drum sticks burr the kit, slicing up the held chord, filling the fading blast, before, again, once more – Blam-Blammmmmmmmm. Snare, kick and toms are chopped at and belted, conjuring up the sound of a falling, of a barely controlled tumble, of some sort of semi-collapse. The expected third volley doesn’t arrive. Instead the song is righted by a scream of wrenching electric guitar strings atop of a descending, blues-based band riff and bolted to the bedrock by bass and keyboard.
Then the vocals, wheezed in serrated syllables:
Hump dat coff-in up ‘round one more bend
These words are repeated, like the G major intro, once more, in classic blues form, just in case you missed it first time.
Hump dat coff-in up ‘round one more bear-air-end
And I’m in a coffin, and it’s being thrown and bounced down the highway, all black tarmac and spent shock absorbers, motor ringing out its highest falsetto note, three heads a-bobbin’ in time. We are encased in a faded, second-hand, off-cream coloured, gear-box buggered, unpredictable Mini 850, heading home after a fruitless spur-of-the-moment trip to Wodonga.
We are somewhere in the middle of summer: Pete, my best mate; Shu, his best girl; and me. No bags or changes of clothes. No tent, no Jaffle iron or pots. No sunscreen. Nothing to drink. No food.
If ya head needs a bandage, try a roadhouse open sandwich
Pete, the only one with a licence, drives. I’ve unfolded my skinny six foot frame sit into the back seat. Shu rides shotgun.
I try not to think of my unrequited love for Shu. My feelings are known to all but bounded by a deep and mutual platonic affection. The three of us are mates and there is something wonderful about this trio, for all of us, I believe. Still, I catch myself staring too long at the sunlight on her hair, or laughing too loud at one of her jokes, and feel the sharp pierce of an unbridgeable distance. Rules around this are unspoken and understood. She’s Pete’s partner. I’m his mate. She is my friend. Full stop.
All the way up yesterday’s highway we played various mix tapes: works of art, built with utmost care and planning. On the return trip though, the compilations are replaced by my copy of the just released Circus Animals by Cold Chisel. It was, (and still is), a perfect road album, full of the band’s sharpest playing and most impassioned performances. For the first time in the studio, the band had found their sound.
As we head south and the mercury heads north, strange bubbling sounds emanate from under the car’s tiny bonnet. The radiator boils – once, twice, twenty or more times. The staccato journey is spent with six eyes glued to the temperature gauge.
A ritual develops. We stop every few clicks down the road, pile out, put the Phillips tape player on the roof of the wheezing 850 and wait for the radiator to calm and settle. Houndog sittin’ by the side of the road. Then we dance in the dust to heat of Houndog and the rest of Circus Animals. Sometimes I sing screaming into an invisible microphone, bending over like Barnesy. Or there are air guitar solos. Or perhaps the roof of the car doubles as Don Walker’s keyboards. The whole scene shimmers in a smelt of sweat, hot metal, steam and melting tar. Then we refill the radiator and get back in the coffin.
I got dog’s disease and asphalt on my shoes
The tape player’s bank of red Eveready batteries had wilted by day’s end, leaving the last part of the trip in a haze of exhausted, dehydrated silence.
Houndog is a song about the hell that the road can turn into when touring as a band, about restlessness, identity, and getting lost in the sway of perpetual (e)motion. For me, it also carries the essence of a time of wanderlust, of rudderless stop/start movement through unemployment, uncertainty, unrequited love, heat, hope and the wide open roads of seemingly infinite directions. Wandering around and waiting around. Feeling fantastic. Feeling frustrated. Not yet a man in no man’s land.
And in the end / It’s the motion is its own reward / It’s just the motion