Come Around is the second song to come from David Bridie’s 2003 album Hotel Radio. What comes to mind when I hear David Bridie and his band My Friend The Chocolate Cake are memories swirling about that iconic neon sign in Melbourne of Audrey the skipping girl (pictured above). Back in 1995 when I was living in Melbourne my Yorkshire lass Louise and I were squeezed together in the back of her cousin’s car. We cuddled up with that overwhelming sense of completeness and passed the famous iconic neon sign of Audrey the skipping girl, and indeed the girl’s magic was at hand.
This cruelly underrated Australian album Hotel Radio doesn’t even have a wikipage, but there are so many gems on it which will feature here. Come Around is one of them:
Looking for excitement here it’s like waiting for the train,
Longing for the phone to ring, hoping for some rain
But will you come around
Take care in being slow now, gentle in your slide
Pure and simple aching, a little silky glide
But will you come around?
Bridie’s solo compositions are just so atmospheric and Come Around is testament to it. He is a songwriting puritan and doesn’t appease to the masses, thank God.. This song reminds me of how The Go-Betweens sound. I remember hearing Bridie saying how he was heavily influenced by them. Also, Bridie was always incensed about hearing Australian recording artists putting on a false accents to be more commercially accessible and appease overseas audiences.
There’s always someone laughing here
In the middle of the day
They’re all singing and shouting in the front of their house
We get carried away
So will you come around
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Leave a Reply