The Seekers

When I was a kid, my parents had an LP of The Seekers, an Australian group who popularized the folk dirge. Maracas were an integral part of the group’s percussive strategy. ‘The Best of the Seekers’ featured classics such as ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’, ‘A World Of Our Own’, ‘Morningtown Ride’, and ‘Georgy Girl’:-

 

When I was a little girl, I used to look wistfully at the cover of this LP innocently lusting after style like Judith Durham’s. At the age of six, I thought the guy on the left was quite the fox. I used to listen to the LP over and over, and drop the needle repeatedly to the start of ‘The Carnival is Over’, the lyrics of which go:-

‘Now the harbour light is calling
This will be our last goodbye
Though the carnival is over
I will love you till I die’

I used to weep for the impossible love between the one-armed strong man and the bearded lady.

You can imagine my joy when I came across a Seekers CD on sale in Christchurch Airport last Tuesday. As soon as we got home, I put it in the stereo and turned the volume up full.

“What did I do?” asked Andrew plaintively, in a quiet moment between ‘Open Up Them Pearly Gates’, and ‘Red Rubber Ball’.

“What?”

“I must have done something wrong for you to be torturing me like this. Are my ears bleeding?”

“These are CLASSIC SONGS!” I said, and I told him about my parents’ Seekers LP and Judith Durham’s dress with the bow and the frills and her satin shoes.

“I can just imagine your parents listening to this,” Andrew muttered darkly.

“What’s THAT supposed to mean?”

“Just that it’s the sort of music they’d listen to.”

“Well they did, and so did your wife, and now you’re listening to it too. Ooh, I love this one!
‘But if I should lose your love, dear
I don’t know what I’d do
For I know I’ll never find another you-ooo-ooo!’”

Andrew stared at me in horror.

Regrettably, the Seekers declined in popularity because they weren’t raunchy enough for the seventies. This picture goes a long way towards explaining why:-