This was my first job when I moved to Sydney.
It was a noisy place to busk with trains rattling in and ferries revving their diesel engines but the audiences were good. One problem was that I attracted much larger crowds if I sang covers that people recognised. My own brilliant songs were largely ignored. However, singing songs repeatedly is boring. Being the late 1980s, lots of people requested The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 miles). Easy to play, very recognisable but really dull after you’ve played it a few hundred times. So I played around with the words.
My standout memory of this particular job was the stricken face of a poor, innocent American lady who walked past just as I was singing:
…and when I come, yes I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man that comes all over you.
Oh.
My.
God.
I don’t have any pictures of me busking at Circular Quay but my mates came by while I was playing in The Corso at Manly, took a picture and then pelted me with coins.
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