Fifty for Fifi

I have to start today’s post with an erratum, an addendum.

I oversold things in the 1983 post. It turns out, as i was told this morning, that Fi has not met U2.

Was her brother Sean local tour manager for U2 when they came to Brisbane? Absolutely. Is Larry Mullen Jr.’s motorbike involved in the story? Again, absolutely, he is well known to love his Harleys. Did Fi herself ride on it perhaps securing herself by holding on to Larry Mullen Jr.’s strong drum-player’s shoulders? Absolutely not. That is a story fabricated in the author’s memory and followed through on because asking the subject of the exercise for details of her connections to particular bands spoils the surprise.

As I mentioned to Fi when she told me, not only do I not mind getting things wrong, errors and their exploration are a key part of the blogging process for me. Which is what everyone says after they get caught in a blunder. Something something tapestry something.

For the record, Fi owns a onetime part of the bike in question – a headlamp to be specific. Apparently it needed to be replaced due to damage and Larry ask (brother) Sean to dispose of it for him. Sean asked Larry to sign it for him as a favour to his sister and the whole band joined in on the signings. I am told it is still in the house somewhere, I have not dared to ask for fear I’ll be asked to move some boxes.

Today’s song again takes us back to the precious times at the start of our relationship. It’s a song about the excitement of being together. When I first lived in Australia, our plan was to date up close for six months and move on with our plan to start a family, a compromise between the reality of two very complicated people merging their lives together and more basic biological timelines, given the ages we both were when we met. You do the maths.

I rented a little one person house behind the railway tracks in Caboolture. It was tiny but perfectly adequate with a mysterious tree in the backyard that was slowly growing what seemed to be grapefruit but once out of the green stage turned out to be the most delicious, juicy and frankly huge oranges we’d ever encountered.

We didn’t spend all day every day together but weekends were a little slice of what life together could be like.

After that wonderful time we agreed to go to the next step, moved in together and started work in earnest on the task of making a family. As some will know, Fi fell pregnant with our daughter almost immediately. Fi has been known to express a wish that we had more time in that early dating phase. I’m just grateful we had the time at all.

Close to Me includes one of my favourite approaches to music writing, in which elements are added line by line until a full music picture builds up. It is a hugely fun bop with an amazing example of the state of creativity in music video creation in the 80s. Enjoy.