|
Click
here to go back to the Howzat! archive
WHEN LOVE COMES BACK TO HAUNT
YOU
Everything you see is just a memory … When my friend Billy
Pinnell met Joni Mitchell, he wanted to give her a present,
something that summed up Melbourne. He gave her a copy of
Stephen Cummings' Lovetown. In my mind, Joni loves that
album as much as I do. Stephen's third and fourth solo albums,
Lovetown and A New Kind Of Blue, provided the soundtrack
to my early 20s. "Where are you going?" Stephen asked. "Can
I come for the ride?" I took Lovetown with me everywhere,
not that I ever really went anywhere. Lovetown is a masterpiece,
and A New Kind Of Blue is just as good. And this weekend
Stephen is playing both albums at the Caravan Club, on 20
& 21 Feb. When Lovetown was released, I was meant to be
writing police stories for The Sun, but I would skip work
to see Stephen do a Saturday afternoon gig at the old Governor
Hotham Hotel near Swinburne Uni. Lovetown introduced us
to a waitress named Jane, who would reappear in Stephen's
work. "So I bought the waitress a stinger while I had a
gimlet and a daiquiri." I had no idea what Stephen was talking
about, but it sounded so cosmopolitan and compelling. Fast-forward
to A New Kind Of Blue and I was in a new share house, looking
after my best mate's room while he was overseas. I fell
in love with my best mate's secret girlfriend. Only she
also had another boyfriend. It was complicated. One of Stephen's
songs was called Screwed Up State Of Affairs. "The spirit
is fragile," he sang, "and it climbs up on the roof, who
said love was foolproof?"
When The Age did a poll to come up with the 50 greatest
Australian albums, I placed Lovetown at number one, calling
it "the sound of Melbourne melancholia". "You can't have
everything," Stephen sang, "sometimes you can't have anything
at all." Stephen wasn't built for stardom, but when Lovetown
was released, he was dubbed "the St Kilda Sinatra", a fair
description, though Stephen is a better songwriter. In his
Rolling Stone review, Clinton Walker called A New Kind Of
Blue "a record for our times". Twenty-seven years later,
I'm a different person, and I'm not a fan of critics who
make the review all about themselves. But the great artists
write songs that are all about you. When I listen to Lovetown
and A New Kind Of Blue, I'm young and unsure again, "holding
hands in the back of some taxi".
HOT LINE
"Some prayers are answered unexpectedly, from time to time"
- Stephen Cummings, Some Prayers Are Answered.
CHART WATCH
Flume has the year's first Aussie number one single.
Never Be Like You FLUME (number one)
Keeping Score LDRU (17)
Cheap Thrills SIA (22)
Hoops THE RUBENS (23)
1955 HILLTOP HOODS (25, debut)
Youth TROYE SIVAN (26)
My Sunshine MASHD N KUTCHER (34)
The Trouble With Us MARCUS MARR & CHET FAKER (37)
Good golly, Molly leaps from nine to one.
Molly Soundtrack VARIOUS (number one)
This Is Acting SIA (five)
Bloom RÜFÜS (nine)
Currents TAME IMPALA (17)
Dream Your Life Away VANCE JOY (24)
Triple J Like A Version Vol. 11 VARIOUS (25)
Adam Brand And The Outlaws ADAM BRAND AND THE OUTLAWS (33)
The Very Best INXS (36)
Blue Neighbourhood TROYE SIVAN (37)
Hoops THE RUBENS (40)
HOWZAT! PLAYLIST
Push It Up All Fall Down STEPHEN CUMMINGS
Your House Is Falling STEPHEN CUMMINGS
You Jane STEPHEN CUMMINGS
When Love Comes Back To Haunt You STEPHEN CUMMINGS
Everybody Wants To Get To Heaven But Nobody Wants To Die
STEPHEN CUMMINGS
Click
here to go back to the Howzat! archive
|
