If you were born near enough to when I was born, under the sun in the suburbs of Sydney, your bones lengthening, your cells multiplying, all fuelled with daily doses of Vegemite. Your vowels are flat, your knees are scarred, you have skin taught across your shoulders bearing the marks of too much sunburn and the soles of your feet are immune to the eye-watering pain of bindis.
You also woke up on Saturday morning, ran into the living room, sat cross legged on the carpet in front of the telly and while your mum made the breakfast you waited for the siren call from the screen in front of you..RAAAAAAHHH-IIIIIIIIIGGGGG.
I have no idea who that woman is, I have no idea why the show is even called Rage, but every Saturday, starting at midnight, the ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster, plays music video clips through the night. At about 6am, they start playing the Top 100, counting up to number 1, and most Saturdays, I would catch the last 50 or so.
Madonna stomping and strutting as buff and brawn twin Apollo gyrated and gesticulated in the background or Kylie floating about in her little bubble spaceship, nubile, saucy and suggestive, as she artfully removed her bespoke tiny pink spacesuit. Michael Jackson and his celebrity besties acting out 4-minute theatricals of increasing grandeur as he grabbed his crotch and shamon’d. Michael Hutchence sultrily prancing in frozen parks, New Kids stepping simultaneously in time, John Farnham’s windswept mullet, they all combined to beat out the soundtrack of my adolescent Saturday mornings.
I have missed my Saturday mornings on the floor, jumping, bouncing, waiting impatiently to observe the minutiae of Kylie bowing forward in her white sheet-y robe-y thing as I attempted, in vain, to memorise the choreography of I just can’t get you out of my head, no easy feat when you have only 4 minutes to photographically commit to memory all those robotic hand flicks in time to the pouty La-La-la’s. I did eventually get there…albeit, more clothed than Ms Minogue.
According to the Oracle of Leamington Spa, The Beatles invented video clips; of course they did, The Beatles invented everything. Eight track recording, video clips, pre-One Direction mass-teenage-hysteria, dubious celebrity marriages and sex-tapes; if a sex-tape is watching two full-grown humans writhe naked on a bed in New York. The Oracle, my father, said that The Fab Four invented videos because they couldn’t bear the screaming or a million maiden minions when they performed live. I wonder if One Direction will invent locking themselves in a soundproof box when the sound becomes too much for their little ears?
I know you can watch clips on demand on YouTube, I know about Vevo, but there is something enthralling about watching them live on TV, never sure of what is going to come next, never sure of what might be number 1. There is something sentimental and nostalgic about sitting on the floor with my breakfast waiting for my favourites, waiting to dance, waiting to sing.
Moving to London, I’ve found my Saturday mornings all over again.
The Sky+ box; my second favourite thing in the world.
Sure, I can watch Game of Thrones less than 24 hours after it screens in the States, I get Mad Men, True Detective and Masters of Sex within a week, but none of that matters to me as much as my 15 channels of music videos. The box’s recording feature is pretty damn life-changing for someone who spends two weeks a month in another country, but far more gratifying is the constant stream of retro countdowns, dance countdowns, pop countdowns, boy-band countdowns and of course, my weekly UK top 40.
I’ve written before about how important music is to me. I’m one of those people who has a song for everything, who recites lyrics to win an argument, who quotes Madonna to prove a point, who sings out loud in public, who has music on from the minute I wake up, who listens to the radio at work oblivious to the presence of colleagues, who purchased the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy on my phone as I left the cinema at Westfield #freewifi #hookedonafeeling But even more than just listening to music, I love feeling music. I love experiencing music.
I don’t know if you run, but if you do, have you ever tried to run without music? The beats, the words, the rhythm, they all combine to force me forward as my breath shortens, my face reddens and my will wanes. Music makes your arms move when you have no strength to lift them. Music lifts your feet when they feel heavier than the body above. Music is the only way I can run; music deafens my inner sceptic, music helps me forget what passersby might think of me as I lumber along the Thames, daydreaming the weight away from my thighs.
So on a Saturday morning, after a week of telling stories on the phone, of writing emails that mask what I really want to say, of making other people feel great about themselves while I clasp at the few remaining strands of self-confidence that give me the courage to leave the house each morning instead of lolling on the bed in tears, I sit on my floor.
I don’t sit for long; I’m sipping on coffee, nibbling on vegemite toast, flicking through virtual newspapers… and then… I start to dance.
No make up, hair bunched up away from my face, matted with the sweat of sleep, faded polka-dot bloomer shorts and pastel girlie singlet pyjamas, I start to thrust and jerk, to step and clap, to twirl and spin. I dance. I stare out the windows into the blinding sunrise and for just a moment, I’m not #bridgetbythebridge I’m Britney Fucking Spears in a red latex catsuit (before she went batshit crazy)…I am dancing… and I am happy.
I imagine I look like this, the neighbours across the garden likely disagree. #bridgetsballet
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