1999 Baz Luhrmann: Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

It seems of late that at least once a month a friend or 'acquaintance' will forward me some viral email or Facebook message that sets out a heart-warming story and/or piece of homespun wisdom. The fact they usually end threatening of luck of the worst kind if I don't forward it to ten people in my address book by the next full moon is a bit of a downer but hey, no worries - I'm not the superstitious type so these things go straight in the bin anyway, though I confess that occasionally even a hard nosed cynic like me will read something in them that strikes a chord or two before they're deleted.

Being nothing more than a voice actor reciting journalist Mary Schmich's 1997 'commencement speech' (that appeared in the Chicago Tribune) over the choral version of Rozalla's 'Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)', I tend to regard 'Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)' as essentially a 1999 version of those emails. Though far less of a novelty in our modern, e-communication overloaded times, it was moreso of one in 1999 and for the want of anything better to say, your reaction to it is going to depend on your own attitude to the content of the spam mails I mentioned above.

Schmich's very American ("Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard"), right leaning ("Don't expect anyone else to support you"), slightly self satisfied recipe for a wholesome life won't be for everyone, but there's nothing that's going to raise too many hackles. The sort of 'common sense' granny used to dispense, for my own part I'd have found more value in a hardcore remix of Renton's 'Choose Life' speech from 'Trainspotting', or the "You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank.You're not the car you drive.You're not the contents of your wallet" speech from Palahniuk's 'Fight Club', but horses for courses I guess.

'Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)' stands as a curio from a more technologically backward, less media intrusive era where mail still came through the letterbox and people had to actively go to information instead of it coming to them, unwanted and unasked for. On occasions when it did, like this, then the message took on more inherent 'worth' and 'value' by its sheer 'not heard that before' novelty. Harmless enough I guess, but lifestyle sloganeering belongs on posters, badges and newspaper columns......anywhere really besides at the top of the charts.