>“For me, a great rock song is a good tune, plus some inspired irritant – a shout, a noise, an enigmatic line, a raucous solo.”

John Pareles – now the chief music critic of the Arts section of the New York Times – wrote that when he was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone in the 1980s.

I clipped it and it’s stayed on my pinboard to this day.

There are songs that – when I hear them – I instantly know where I was when I first heard them. They’re indelibly linked to the taste of the air or the person I was with or the taste of the coffee or the record store I subsequently bought the album from. Or. Or. Or

Tracks that literally stopped me in my tracks

My “Stop you in your tracks²

#3 in a series of n

The Kinks – All Day And All Of The Night

This song to this day brings tears to my eyes. Takes my breath away, too.

I grew up in Northcote, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand,

I lived right next door – literally – to Northcote College, the local co-ed secondary school. My parents (for all the wrong reasons, but -as it turned out – with the right results) sent me to Westlake Boys High School, 5 km away.
There was a bus service of sorts, but – this being New Zealand in the 1960s – the unions determined randomly that the bus drivers couldn’t pick up passengers in Onewa Road, so you’d (correction – I’d) be stuck there at 8 in the morning with assembly at 8:45 and the only bus that would get you me on time disappearing into the distance.

So it was the bicycle. 3 speed Sturmey Archer gears.

Between the ages of 13 and 18, I’d ride 10 km a day in all weathers.

Along the yellow line.

Out of the gate, then a left into Onewa Road, past the Catholic church with all the convent girls (lust, lust), then coast down to the primary school and as fast as you could go around the hairpin bend (foot down, like cinder track speedway rider) and then pedal like crazy to get as much momentum as you could to take you up the other side of the dip on Lake Road. Partly, anyway. Get on the pedals for the rest of the climb.
Over the top, down past Northcote Internediate and then it’s pretty flat past Ocean View onto Northcote Road where a couple of other guys would join the trek and down past the golf course, left onto Wairau Road, past Westlake Girls – as cool as you could manage, given the hormonal levels -, past Jock Bleakley’s garage and then onto the pedals for the climb up Forrest Hill.

Quite a bunch of us by this time – all the guys from Taka and Milford – and we’d be singing what we’d heard on the radio.

1964. I’d be 16 and in my University Entrance year.

“All day and all of the night” was controversial. And thus a favourite.

WE knew what it meant, and the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation THOUGHT they did but weren’t QUITE sure, so they hadn’t banned it yet (Banning songs? These things happened all the time in New Zealand in the 60s and 70s….).

So there’s about 10 of us heading up the hill, on the pedals, racing each other and chorusing

Girl I want to be with you all of the time
All day and all of the night
All day and all of the night
All day and all of the night

Then one of the cotter pins that fix the pedals to the chain ring broke.

Gravity proceeded to propel me unimpeded at increasing speed from a great height until my balls hit the crossbar, followed closely by the rest of me in rapid deceleration mode.

Everything went blank. I had no idea anything could hurt that much.

Falling off a ladder and breaking ribs comes close.

But only close.

Talk about breathless.

And bringing tears to your eyes…..