I posted this on the Simple Minds Facebook visitor wall today (with the picture of the koala)…
THE POWER OF NEW GOLD DREAM:
I have just spent the past 5 days in Adelaide (and surrounding Adelaide Hills). My first ever visit. I was meeting and subsequently staying with a lovely lady I have been, firstly, pen-pals with and then email friends and friends on social networks with since 1998/99. We became pen-pals while still living in the same country (Oz), but vast distances, and then my subsequent move to the UK meant we never had the opportunity to meet until now.
The second day I was there, Janis (said friend) was telling about the wildlife that can be spotted around where she lives. She had told me it wasn’t unusual to see koalas resting in trees around her neighbourhood and she then made it her mission for me to see a wild koala resting on a gum tree. I had my doubts. I’ve never seen a koala in the wild, despite all my years of having lived in Australia.
That day passed with no koala spotted. Janis was mildly disappointed. I wasn’t expecting to be that lucky, so I wasn’t. (I’ll get to the point of this story soon!)
On day three (day two of the “big koala spot”) we had a musical change. Janis has an MP3 player in her car and it was on a mixed playlist that SUPPOSEDLY had some Simple Minds in the mix…but you know how these “shuffle” modes work! To make up for the distinct lack of SM playing in the car, Janis put on NGD (the album…not just the song!).
As we collected her daughter from art class that afternoon (and having spent the past two days searching for the elusive wild koalas), New Gold Dream (the song) started playing. I was relaying to her of my posting some months ago of my itty bitty fave musical section of the song and of your fantastic reply to it, Jim (which I MUST print and frame). And how much more magical it makes NGD for me now…
AND THEN I LOOK UP TO A TREE AND SEE A KOALA! I kid you not. I have Janis as my witness! It was down a private back road so we could stop the car, get out and take a closer look. My first wild koala! I was ecstatic and saying to Janis “See!!! What was I saying?!! It’s the power of New Gold Dream!! Jim wasn’t lying to me!”
The following day, it served up even more magic with a pass over of a flock of black cockatoos, but I won’t bore you with further details.
But I just wanted to share my experience of the power of the song and thank you for it.
:-)))
And…I got a like. I was kind of hoping for more…but a like is a like.
And the sighting really WAS that magical…
