Rocktober Day Thirty: Cleaning Windows

In 1991, not long after the first gulf war started, my first husband Colin left me for my best friend's husband's much younger half sister who he had met for the first time at their wedding. [This is not a plot line from The Bold and The Beautiful.] I had just started working for my dad's new company and our office was in Ultimo, just near the Powerhouse Museum. There was no parking nearby, so I would park blocks away, under the overpass and it was a good walk through the back streets to the office and back.

Not long after I had a brief, though intense and, in hindsight, totally weird relationship with the graphic designer who was sub-leasing part of our office space.

I was angry, sad, spaced out and in a very strange mental space.

Why do you need to know all this? Not sure, really. But a very strong memory I have of that surreal time was listening to the Best of Van Morrison in the car every afternoon. It's a wonder I didn't wear out that CD.

It suited my mood at the time and when I hear any of those songs now it immediately takes me back to that time.

I don't know why I love this song, except that it has such an uplifting tune and sentiment... but I just do.

Cleaning Windows (live clip from YouTube - he's not so great live I have heard)

Oh, the smell of the bakery from across the street
Got in my nose
As we carried our ladders down the street
With the wrought-iron rows
I went home and listened to Jimmy Rodgers in my lunch-break
Bought five Woodbines at the shop on the corner
And went straight back to work

Oh, Sam was up on top
And I was on the bottom with the v
We went for lemonade and Paris buns
At the shop and broke for tea
I collected from the lady
And I cleaned the fanlight inside-out

I was blowing saxophone on the weekend
In that down joint.What's my line?
I'm happy cleaning windows
Take my time
I'll see you when my love grows
Baby don't let it slide
I'm a working man in my prime
Cleaning windows (number thirty-six).

I heard Leadbelly and Blind Lemon
On the street where I was born
Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Muddy Waters sing "I'm a Rolling Stone"
I went home and read my Christmas Humphreys' book on Zen
Curiosity killed the cat
Kerouac's "Dharma Bums" and "On The Road".

What's my line?
I'm happy cleaning windows
Take my time
I'll see you when my love grows
Baby don't let it slide
I'm a working man in my prime
Cleaning windows ...