there are no dissidents
in the homeland
there is no dissidence at home

it's a long project
with no prospects
but i'd still like to see the turn of the century

the market place will survive
it's alive
breathing pipes will be free
the association will pay

This song came out of nowhere in 1981. Beat Rhythm Fashion were a local Wellington band, and put out, I think, two singles. It sounds like it's been sung from a long way away. It sounds like the singer really doesn't believe he'll be around in 2000.

The early 1980's were a time of change for me - my first years at University and all that. And they were a time of change for New Zealand. And punk/new wave was still washing over New Zealand. I think this song captures some of the mood of that time. It's a song that has haunted me ever since I first heard it.

At times, in the early '80's, the turn of the century seemed a long long way away in New Zealand.

The country was riven by the Springbok rugby tour of 1981. A racially selected South African team came to New Zealand and played the All Blacks - the somewhat ironic name, given the situation, of our national team. There's a lot of history to this test series, to rugby between the two countries, which I won't go into, but suffice to say that for a lot of New Zealand, and white South Africa, these rugby matches were the most important thing in the world at that time.

I'm deeply ashamed that I went to one of the test matches. That I walked through streets lined with protesters and barbed wire and police to see a rugby match. I'm deeply ashamed that I was arrogant enough to believe I'd thought through the issues and decided that, no, sport and politics didn't mix; and that, yes, rugby was a way of breaking down apartheid in South Africa.

I am proud, though, that four years later, I marched against a New Zealand team touring South Africa in 1985.

I changed a lot at University. A lot of it was internal change, stuff that you had to know me well to see. I started University in 1980 doing a science degree. There was some pressure from my parents to do that, and some thought that job prospects would be better. And it wasn't that I didn't like science - some of the time, or couldn't do it - some of the time; it was that my heart wasn't in it.

I failed miserably my first year. Deep down I wanted to fail, so that I could say "I tried, but it didn't work out", and do something else.

It's the chorus of this song that moves me most.

It's the voice of someone who doesn't fit in, and knows it; and might never fit in, and knows it; and yet still wants to try and change things enough that he might have a future.

I never have, and never did, quite fit in. I could speak the language of different groups enough to fake it when I had to, but something, a self-consciousness(?), always stops me identifying. Or maybe it's that I've never believed something strongly enough to want to fight for it. But I've always wanted to do that. To have the courage to be an activist, to want to change things, to undertake a "long project with no prospects" because I believe in it.

When the song came out, there were possibilities open for change. Punk had opened music to previously unheard voices. New Zealand was soon to undergo massive social and economic change.

.......... i changed my degree.

I'm generally pleased with who I am. Sometimes, though, I wish I had more courage. This song speaks to me of courage against the odds.