Thomas has also lifted the lid on his new video ‘Captain Collingwood’.
Hot on the heels of releasing their new album City’s Calling Me in April and with a national tour in store for later this year, Mick Thomas’ Roving Commission have another treat up their collective sleeve in the form of a new video for ‘Captain Collingwood’.
To celebrate, we caught up with Mick Thomas and, keeping to the geographical theme of the new record, he listed half a dozen love songs where an unlikely place is the star of the affair.
“Westgarth, Deepdene, Indented Head, Hartwell and Heathmont, they’re all unlikely places you might never visit,” said Thomas. “Here’s list of songs concerned with some unlikely places that resonate with me – although I’ve hardly ever been to any of them…”
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‘When a Boy From Alabama Meets a Girl From Gundagai’ by Jack O’Hagan/Joy Nichols and the Youth Show
He’d had success with ‘Along the Road to Gundagai’ and with post-war Australia full of American GIs, this further cemented O’Hagan as a writer of songs that could touch the nation’s heart. I read somewhere he’d never even been to Gundagai (and I doubt he’d ever set foot in Alabama).
‘Tuscon Train’ by Bruce Springsteen
‘Tuscon Train’ is lifted from the album, Western Stars, which seems to have split Springsteen fans down the middle (I love it). We were actually booked to record an album there in April this year, so it’s a place as significant as it is unlikely for us. I still think we’ll get there one day.
‘The Ballad of Camooweal’ by Slim Dusty
There’s few enough love songs in the cannon of older Australian bush ballads and country songs, but this is a beauty.
‘Fitzroy Crossing’ by Warumpi Band
Again another unlikely love song with affairs of the heart juxtaposed on an unforgiving landscape. Very evocative.
‘Sweet Thames Flow Softly’ by Christy Moore and Sinead O’Connor
Written by Ewan MacColl, this is a veritable checklist of the places the London tourist never bothers with. Again, a love song set amidst (this time) urban decay and squalor.
‘Galveston’ by Glen Campbell
When Weddings Parties Anything first visited Houston, Texas, all we wanted was to go to Galveston on our day off. But the locals talked us out of it. It’s just an ordinary beach in front of some oil refineries, they said. So we didn’t go. But I still love the song.
Check out the video clip for ‘Captain Collingwood’ by Mick Thomas’ Roving Commission below.
City’s Calling Me is out now via Brickfielders Recording Co. Check it out on Bandcamp.
