Saltwater Wells In My Eyes (Monthly)

I have a piece in The Monthly. It is about Julian Lennon and the ozone layer. It is also about Burnie and sometimes Captain Planet. It is about male emotions and men crying. It is for the ‘Life Sentences’ column in which writers riff on a catchphrase, lyric or quote that has loomed large in their life. John Safran has done it also. Check out the March edition with Kim Williams on the cover.

FUN FACTS:

My piece contains research from a forthcoming book I’m writing about Burnie.

I always assumed George Harrison played the solo on Saltwater. Not true! It’s actually Steve Hunter. George played a demo, which Steve replicated. George was busy consoling Eric Clapton whose son had just died.

Saltwater debuted on the Australian charts in late 1991 and went to number one in March 1992, (knocking off Euphoria’s Love You Right.) It was a slow-climb, eleven weeks in all. (It peaked at #6 in the UK and barely charted in America.) Saltwater held the top spot in Oz for four weeks (impressive!) before being ursurped by….wait for it…

The 12th Man (featuring MCG Hammer) with Marvellous. Super effort that.

This is my Monthly debut. My previous appearance in Schwartz media was when Get Up Mum was reviewed by The Saturday Paper.

Water divining is also known as ‘water dowsing.’ It’s making a comeback according to this ABC story.

I bought the Saltwater cassingle in 2020 as research for the Get Up Mum theatre show. (If you leave me in a room and give me an arts grant I will go online and purchase cassettes.) The tape is good value as it acts as a ‘Greatest Hits EP’ – mirroring a gag from Northcote (So Hungover).

The Monthly doesn’t allow single quote marks, as a rule. I originally intended for the word ‘blue‘ to appear as so.

If you would like more information about the status of the ozone (courtesy of Tas. artist Sarah Howell), this article talks about the 2018 CFC emissions from Chinese factories. This article acknowledges the effects of the Hunga Tonga eruption from January 2022. Finally, this 2019 ABC story speaks specifically about the hole in the ozone myth and the sun’s vibes in Tasmania.

Why should one baby feel so hungry she cries? Fair point. Babies do tend to cry when hungry, as a rule, but pedantics over songlyrics is a fraught exercise in long-bow drawing and goal-post shifting.

I know what Julian means. How is that huge famine going in Yemen anyway? In 2024, over 18 million people (half the population) will need humanitarian assistance. Much of the food insecurity was caused by war. So – to site Julian’s Dad – all we are saying / is give peace a chance is still a valid mantra.

Anyway, I’ll stay in my lane. Hyper-local non-fiction with witty puns from the nineties. Please follow this wordpress site (bottom right-hand corner) and subscribe to my mailing list HERE.

Julian Lennon update: Having lived for love (and a rockstar career), he’s known as more of a photographer these days. He received so much grief about aping his Dad’s upper register that he didn’t pick up the guitar for seven years. (Tame Impala gets away with it, but has the advantage of biological independence.) Unfortunately, Our Julian went through a bit of an ‘anti-vaxx’ phase along with Eric Clapton. *sigh* Never meet your heroes (online).

He released a new version of Saltwater in 2016 called Saltwater 25. He said things like ‘it’s still relevant, now more than ever’ which, as you know, is ‘true.’

Burnie had a mini oil-spill in the sea only a few days ago! As per the Burnie Council’s FB post: “The polluted water advisory from Council follows an incident involving a delivery truck at Target, resulting in diesel fuel entering the Council’s stormwater network. In consultation with the EPA and TasFire, to ensure the public’s safety, the affected drain was flushed, resulting in the discharge of contaminated water at West Beach – just on the Western side of the playground.” Yikes. There just happens to be a major Little Penguins rookery there. Saltwater wells in my….well, you get the picture.

Actually, I haven’t cried since I watched All of Us Strangers at Westgarth Cinemas – but that was only because I was a on a date going nowhere slow (much like the film).