Welcome, you are listening to Every Song. A series where I play songs I’ve written throughout the years and share the stories behind them.
This is The Boy From Waiuku.
080612 The Boy From Waiuku
Looking in front of the mirrorKnowing that I am aloneToday is just simply clearerNot minding that I’m flying solo
And I want to be freeSo, just leave me beAnd I’m going to let goSo I can rock n roll
But I’m never too happyTo feel like wearing blackSome days i’m just too angryTo feel like turning backI said today I’m just too happyTo feel like being badTomorrow I’ll feel naughtySo you can feel as glad
The first time that I didn’t careAbout the outcome of my spontaneous decisionTo start living my life on the edgeAnd to satisfy my every temptation
Dancing in the corner of the roomWhere nobody can see us twoI fell in love on the dance floorWith the boy from Waiuku
I wrote The Boy From Waiuku on the 12th of June 2008. Evidently, the title doesn’t seem like it has much to do with the body of the song. It’s almost just a couple of lines I threw on the end of the song as I was finishing it. But when I was composing the song, trying to work on the ending, I just kept playing the chords and improved the lines. It kinda just came out and I was like oh s**t oh s**t I better remember that - what did I just sing? The, “I fell in love on the dance floor with the boy from Waiuku”. I liked that line and I didn’t know where that came from.
I guess it’s also a homage to all the times my friends and I would go to Waiuku at Wilson’s place/bach there - all the summers we’d go there.
I didn’t actually plan for there to be a coda. It was just this weird throwaway line I put in there.
The last line refers to this rando (the boy from Waiuku) I met at an after party for our year 12 school ball in 2008 when I was 16. He was a friend (or was it a cousin?) of Dyall’s from Waiuku, and he was only in town that weekend to party with us. For the life of me, I cannot remember his name, only that he was from outta town and since (remember I’ve mentioned this before) I never ever go for any of the boys from my school cause I don’t s**t where I eat, I basically decided that he would be my main entertainment for the night when we were introduced to each other. Oh no, I do remember one more thing about him. His mum was a hairdresser and she used to make him sweep the floors at the salon. I know that because he asked if I had a part-time job, and I was telling him that some days after school and on the weekends, I work as a colour technician at the local hairdressers, Rodney Wayne in Royal Oak Mall. Rodney Wayne’s not there any more, it’s another salon nowadays. But yeah, I do remember laughing about that.
So, Waiuku as in this guy I met at a party and Waiuku also from all the summers we would spend there as kids.
I think (if I remember it correctly) I was already working on the song some days or maybe weeks before actually finishing it. Like I said, this was around the time of our Year 12 school ball and the line, “I’m never too happy to feel like wearing black” is about my ball dress because I chose a cheetah print dress instead of my usual signature colour and the people were shocked. And it’s also a reference to how people always point out the fact that I almost only wear black and I’m just like mm-hmn no s**t Sherlock. They tell me that I only wear black as if I didn’t notice it and pick it out myself.
Another funny yet annoying story from the year 12 ball in 2008 was that the day of the ball, as in the morning of, I woke up with a massive pimple on my nose. No exaggeration. It was like a Disney original TV show where a character inconveniently gets a huge zit on their face on the day of something important happening. I knew that this pimple was going to be photobombing every single photo with me in it that night so I just posed with a peace sign over it for most of the pictures. No seriously.
It turned into a whole thing and all my friends would pose with like peace signs around the pictures so that it’s not so obvious that I keep holding a peace sign over my head even though I look back at the photos now and it’s very obvious. It wasn’t so bad in the end cause it turned a potential confidence-downer into something iconic and memorable.
The next song is about summer flings - well it was supposed to be when I first got the little wind to start writing it … but it is also lowkey inspired by teenage horror TV shows and movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Pretty Little Liars.
I wanted to write about the idea of gossip and secrets and how harmful they might be when one is of that age, while also trying to just enjoy one’s youth. This song is called Summer Love. I wrote it on the 23rd of December 2010.
101223 Summer Love
La la la la la la loveSummer love
The sun is rising to another dayWe’re still in bedBut I don’t mind cause I’m in your armsThere’s no where else I’d rather beBut you insistYour batter is chargedWe’ll find something else to do insteadSo, we head down to the beachAnd make sweet love in the sand
He said she saidSomebody’s getting away with murderI said you saidDon’t worry about it we’re innocentThey said that we’re headingDown a rock road it’s roughBut there ain’t nothing wrong withSome good old fashioned summer love
The wind is stillWe feel the thrillOf our hearts beating fastOur skin is burningAs we’re yearningTo feel each other’s touchWhen the moon comes roundIt don’t matterWe’ll light up a fireBy the oceanI’ll have the best viewOf your beautiful eyes
Now I wish I could stop the world from spinningCause I don’t wanna lost this feelingWhen this season endsWill we meet each other againI never said we’d lastNo promises madeNone broken
He said that she saidSomebody’s getting away with murderI said that you saidDon’t worry, just sing it again
Thank you for listening to episode 46 of Every Song. Until next time.
