“Oh my, oh my, have you seen the weather?
The sweet September rain.
Rain on me like no other.
Until I drown, until I drown”.
from a song by a UK band called Prefab Sprout.
I had the above song on my brain tonight. Why? Well - it all started on my journey home from the office. The first leg of my journey home is Westbound Piccadilly from Hammersmith to Alperton. I then get the route 79 bus from Alperton to home. It was at Alperton that I happened across every bus-travelling-commuters dilemma:
“do you think I’ve got enough time to just pop over to those shops to get some quick groceries before my bus arrives? Or should I wait here because it’ll arrive any minute now?“
What I needed was fresh green chillies. There is an Asian grocer (now becoming a rare species) around 200 metres away from the bus stop - and occasionally I chance it if I ever need something on the way home. Tonight it was fresh green chillies. And tonight I didn’t feel like risking it. I was just convinced that the bus would be here “any minute now”. Of course - that didn’t happen. Yep - I ended up waiting there for over half an hour before the 79 came. (Why is it that the 83 bus comes almost every 30 seconds - and often in threes - and the 79 bus doesn’t?)
Anyway - the connection to the song was a string of coincidences and mind-flashing imagery. It seemed to happen all of a sudden - within a few seconds - during an inspiring moment of an uninspiring long wait at the bus stop. It went something like this:
- I need chillies. And chillies originated in Mexico.
- In Mexico - buses don’t arrive in threes.
- There is a state of the USA called New Mexico.
- I remembered that I had been to New Mexico in 1987 (part of my epic driving journey around the USA) and specifically: I got a recall of a hot sunny morning driving down a desert highway towards the New Mexico city of Alburquerque.
- There was a song from around that year which had an anthemic chorus line which went something like “Hot Dog, Jumping Frog, Albu-queruque” - and it was by a band called Prefab Sprout.
- Tonight it felt like it was going to rain as I stood at the bus stop - and Prefab Sprout also had another famous-ish song about September rains.
And that was it. That’s how I got that song on my brain tonight. Strange isn’t it?
Anyway - the rest of my Friday-night journey home was uneventful. But I did remind myself to dig out that Prefab album from my decaying eighties cassette collection sometime …
