Them's Fightin' Words

Back in the 90s (as with any decade I guess) there were some bands that released killer tracks and then just as quickly faded into complete obscurity, only to surface again at the most random times in our lives.

It’s 3am and you’re listening to Cradock FM and the next thing you know, “Spaceman” by Babylon Zoo starts blasting through the speakers. Remember that one? Christ, giving away my age here…

Anyway, I’ve made it my mission to track down some of the songs that really meant something to me that have since vanished into thin air and this is one of them.

The band is called Dishwalla, which sounds completely random right? Wrong, “Dishwalla” is a Hindi word. Meaning it must have some higher significance, some mystical relevance right? Wrong, it’s what they call people who “provide cable television” (?).

Anyway, back in 1996 they had some moderate success with a song that started randomly playing in my head a couple of days back, just snatches at first, then enough lyrics to do a quick Google search and track the band down and bada bing bada bang! Here it is

The song’s called “Counting The Blue Cars” and goes like this…

For me, it reminds me of a winter I spent with my cousins in Natal when it snowed. I couldn’t have been much older than 12, but I’ll never forget how the world looked when we woke up that morning and everything around us was covered in a soft white blanket of snow.

Later that day we missioned outside to make snowmen and ended up wandering all over my cousin’s farm to find where the most snow had fallen so we could build snowmen like Calvin.

We eventually wandered so far from home, it was easier to call from the local pub than it was to walk all the way back, so we did and my cousin’s older sister picked us up in her car and this song was playing.

Crazy how vividly this song brings that all back.

That’s the power of music I guess, and the reason why I can’t live without it.

-ST