Today is a Josh Rouse day just because I feel like it. I have mentioned this in passing a few times before; I have a tendency to catalogue the history of Me into music. All it takes is a song to trigger a memory locked deep in my sub-consciousness and to have it push its up to the surface. Josh Rouse is no exception.


My first burst of colour in all its vividness proffered by Salamanca Markets after disembarking at Hobart.

I was introduced to him during my first year of university life by Nata "The Coco" Shariff and every time I want to recall those bleak, bleak times, all I need to do is put on Nashville and press Play.

Not that his songs are terrible. His songs are great! And I lie, first-year uni wasn’t bleak. It was mildly challenging at the worst of times and zomg-hand-me-a-razor-I-need-to-slit-my-wrists at best. That’s right. First-year was confusing, but it was exhilarating, but it could be pretty demoralizing sometimes, and yet still utterly, utterly amazing.

Magical mushrooms beckoned from the highest point of Bruny Island.

Life is good/Sometimes its bad/It has its ups /It has its downs/Sing a song and feel alright/That’s just life. Yup, as corny as that may sound, it kept me going when I was going out of my mind lying on my tiny little single bed in a cold cold foreign land after having to subject myself to a dinner of stir-fried bitter-gourd (Ok, I exaggerate, but not about the bitter-gourd though).

Rock and roll/You are envy I am/So uncool/Still I want to do the best I can/Let’s meet on the corner and act like we’re old friends. Who knew how true these words would ring today?


The Spit, Bruny Island. Separating the good from the bad, the old from the new, the past from the future.