Hang On St. Christopher

Thorough readers of this blog will no doubt have noticed that I exhibit a rather perplexing tendency to take notice of, and sometimes act on, meaningless coincidences. Perplexing because, on the surface at least, I value rationalist modes of thought.

I am not sure why I am drawn to coincidences, though perhaps it has something to do with the circumstances surrounding my discovery of a silly book called "The Celestine Prophecy" while browsing in a Melbourne bookstore a long time ago. The book caught my eye because its cover made mention of travels to Peru. Coincidentally, of course, I was just at that time developing an interest in a certain someone who was born there.

So, I bought the book and started to read it. If nothing else, I rationalised, the specious connection to Peru it contained would provide me with something to talk to her about.

Man. What a load of hippy, dippy, shit.

It turns out, though, that she quite liked the book and thought it had something useful to say about the meaning of coincidences.

Oops.

On his trip to Peru, the narrator of the book met a woman whom he falls deeply for. Then she tells him that there was a reason she appeared in his life, but it was not to be his life-time companion and with that she disappears from his life. Ah, the bittersweet irony.

But back to the subject of this post which is a mildly amusing but trivial coincidence that occurred today ...

Several times over the last few weeks I have happened to be at the Hoey while a band called "The Exiles" were playing. A 5-piece fronted by the entrancing Kym-Louise Barton, they play an interesting mix of country and rock. The final 2 or 3 songs of their set are really strong. The last is a tune called "Hang On St. Christopher" where Fiona, the bass guitarist, picks up a sax and Danny, the drummer, plays the trumpet with one hand while continuing to bang drums with the other. It is a rollicking good cover of a Tom Waits song.

Anyway, I popped in to Red Eye Records this afternoon hoping to pick up a copy of "The Exiles" album which turns out to be not quite finished yet and so decided instead to purchase a copy of "Franks Wild Years" which is the Tom Waits album which originally featured "Hang On St. Christopher".

At the counter, I realised that the guy serving me was the other guitarist, Matt, from "The Exiles". Fancy that! In talking to him, I learnt that this tune will make it onto their album when it finally gets released -in April, they hope.

As I close this post I feel compelled to note that if the one who is not has a favourite saint, then perhaps that saint would be the patron saint of travel - one St. Christopher. Hang on...