Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen) Mix
Performed by Quindon
Tarver
Written by Tim Cox and Nigel Swanston/Peermusic Ltd (publishing)
Produced by Nellee Hooper
"Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young"
Written by Mary Schmich, Spoken by Lee Perry
The "Sunscreen Speech is licenced courtesy of the Chicago Tribune
Mix conceived and directed by BLAM, Mixed by Josh Abrahams
From the motion picture William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
Produced by BLAM, Mixed by Paul Mac
Listen to and watch this
song on 'You Tube' - Everybody's
Free (to wear sunscreen) video
Click here
for the song lyrics for Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)
I first heard this song in 1998 on my car stereo on the way to the cinema complex where I was working my way through University. I didn't realise it at the time, but Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen) was receiving frequent air play across Australia, and it was during this trip to work that I quite unexpectedly discovered the reasons why...
I had the volume of my radio turned down low, and was not really paying much attention to the music. As I vacantly listened to some radio advertisements, I heard the sound of Lee Perry's voice for the very first time. At first, I thought what I was hearing was just another ad. However, as I began to listen more carefully to his words of advice, I found myself frowning with a sense of confusion. As the backing music began, I turned up the volume to satisfy my increasing curiosity.
I distinctly remember how, as the song played over my radio, I drove along the road like I was on auto-pilot, totally transfixed by what was being said. My fascination further increased as I began to hear the sound of Quindon Tarver's magnificent Everybody's Free, which immediately invoked in me the emotions felt when the song was used in the beautiful wedding scene in Romeo + Juliet.
I continued to listen, bewildered and somewhat shocked by the sensibility of the spoken lyrics of the song. The words rang true to me, and gradually I realised I'd just found a song that finally addressed the doubts and questions of youth in a confronting yet enlightening manner.
I decided I had to buy my own copy of the song, and soon made my way to a local music shop to buy the track. I was utterly amazed when the sales person told me that the track had not yet been released as a CD single, and the only way to obtain it was to buy a disc called Something For Everybody. I'd never heard of it before and, when I asked more about it, the sales person seemed to know little more than I did! However, when I saw Everybody's Free listed as track 14, I quickly decided that this was reason enough to purchase the full disc. Amazingly, despite being a huge fan of Romeo + Juliet, it actually wasn't until several years later that I realised this album was a Bazmark production, and only recently did it emerge from my CD collection to be given the true recognition it so richly deserves.
Here's what Baz Luhrmann had to say about Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen) Mix [from hollywoodandvine.com]:
"Anton Monsted, Josh
Abrahams and I were working on a remix of Everybody's Free when Ant showed me
something he had received from a friend by e-mail; apparently Kurt Vonnegut's graduation
speech to students at MIT. On reading it, Vonnegut's simple observations and ideas seemed
to provide a profoundly useful guide for getting through life, and we instantly decided to
record it. The problem was we only had a day or two to go on the deadline and contacting
Vonnegut's agent in time was impossible. The idea seemed unlikely. It was two o'clock in
the morning, and this somewhat depressed us, so Anton plugged his computer into the wall
and surfed the net to find more information on contacting Vonnegut.
What he found was to surprise us all: newspaper articles on what had become the 'Sunscreen
Controversy' and what was to prove an amazing moment in the early life of the internet.
Anton was immediately printing out news of how the work of a brilliant columnist for the
Chicago Tribune had been lifted from her column, and a student as a hoax had connected
Vonnegut's name and chain e-mailed it to students all over the world. The words struck a
chord with those who read them, and so Vonnegut's "sunscreen speech" was born.
It was now four o'clock in the morning and we sat stunned as we read pieces of
information.
It seemed to us, whether Vonnegut wrote it or not, the ideas in the piece make such great
sense. Back onto the internet again, and we were e-mailing Mary Schmich, the young
journalist who wrote it for the Chicago Tribune. Fortunately, Mary had quite a connection
to both Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet, so a day later we were in
Sydney recording with a local actor the spoken element of what is now Everybody's Free
(to Wear Sunscreen). What I think is extraordinary, apart from the inherent values in
the ideas, is that we were experiencing ourselves a historical moment in the life of the
internet, an example of how massive publishing power is in the hands of anyone with access
to a PC."
