FEATURE:
Groovelines
Baz Luhrmann – Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
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THERE is a lot to discuss when it comes to…
PHOTO CREDIT: Mikhail Nilov/Pexels
one of the most individual and distinct songs of the 1990s. I remember, in 1997, when Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) came out. 1997 was a pretty distinct and extraordinary year for music. In a time when Britpop here was all but dead or past its peak, there was a lot of change. Established bands who were more Pop or Rock based started to experiment more. It seemed like a time where Electronic music and different sounds were changing the landscape. The music canvas was shifting. I was a teenager than and was stunned when witnessing what was happening. It was such a fertile and remarkable time for music. In all of the wonder and diversity of 1997 came this unique single. It has been the subject of parody and criticism. Many feeling it is a piss take or not sincere. Ridiculing its quasi-philosophical nature. Those who dismiss it feel it was a novelty and would not age well. I feel that the words and advice in the song are perhaps more relevant not than they were in 1997. Many of the pieces of advice, wisdom and suggestions always relevant. At such a distressing and toxic time, there is food for thought. Words that can resonate on a personal level, in addition to those meaningful on a wider stage. The song is based on Wear Sunscreen, an an essay written as a hypothetical commencement speech by columnist Mary Schmich. I am going to get to some features about the track. First, there is some excellent information from Wikipedia regarding the origins of Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen):
“The essay was used in its entirety by Australian film director Baz Luhrmann on his 1998 album Something for Everybody, as "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)". Also known as "The Sunscreen Song", it samples Luhrmann's remixed version of the song "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" by Rozalla, and opens with the words, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Class of '99" (instead of "'97", as in the original column). The song features a spoken-word track set over a mellow backing track. The "Wear Sunscreen" speech is narrated by Australian voice actor Lee Perry. 10 The backing is the choral version of "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)", a 1991 song by Rozalla, used in Luhrmann's film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet. The chorus, also from "Everybody's Free", is sung by Quindon Tarver.
The essay, giving various pieces of advice on how to live a happier life and avoid common frustrations, spread massively via viral email, is often erroneously described as a commencement speech given by author Kurt Vonnegut at MIT.
The essay became the basis for a successful spoken word song released in 1997 by Baz Luhrmann, "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)", also known as "The Sunscreen Song". The song reached number one in Ireland and the United Kingdom and inspired numerous parodies.
Mary Schmich's column "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" was published in the Chicago Tribune on June 1, 1997. In the column's introduction Schmich presents the essay as the commencement speech she would give if she were asked to give one.
In the speech she insistently recommends the wearing of sunscreen, and dispenses other advice and warnings which are intended to help people live a happier life and avoid common frustrations. She later explained that the inspiration came from seeing a young woman sunbathing, and hoping that she was wearing sunscreen, unlike Schmich herself at that age.
The essay soon became the subject of an urban legend which claimed it was an MIT commencement speech given by author Kurt Vonnegut. In reality, MIT's commencement speaker in 1997 was Kofi Annan and Vonnegut had never been a commencement speaker there. Despite a follow-up article by Schmich on August 3, 1997, the story became so widespread that Vonnegut's lawyer began receiving requests to reprint the speech. Vonnegut commented that he would have been proud had the words been his.
Background
Luhrmann explained that Anton Monsted, Josh Abrahams, and he were working on the remix when Monsted received an email with the supposed Vonnegut speech. They decided to use it but were doubtful of getting through to Vonnegut for permission before their deadline, which was only one or two days away. While searching the Internet for contact information they came upon the "Sunscreen" authorship controversy and discovered that Schmich was the actual author. They emailed her and, with her permission, recorded the song the next day.
Release
"Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" was released as a single in some territories in 1997, with the speech (including its opening words, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Class of '97") completely intact. This version appeared in the Triple J Hottest 100 of that year at number 16 in the countdown, and was released on the subsequent CD in early 1998. A limited-edition CD single was issued in the United States on February 9, 1999, but only in the Pacific Northwest region. In the United Kingdom, the song was released on May 31, 1999”.
Twenty-five years after its release here in the U.K., I do think that there has been nothing like it. You may get artists doing Spoken Word or even embodying some of Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) in what they do. There has not been an update. Maybe that would veer back into parody. I feel that there is an opportunity to try something. To write a song that does perhaps update some of the song’s lyrics. That said, I still find Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) to be hugely moving and powerful. I do not understand criticism or mockery directed at it. There is a great BBC documentary that explores the sensation and unlikely success of Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen). I am going to finish with a recent feature from The Guardian. They spoke with Baz Luhrmann and Mary Schmich about its making. The fact it came out in 1999 in the U.K. is relevant to me. That was the year I left high school. In a way, it seems like a valedictory speech or something that was a guide to adulthood. I still think about the song twenty-five years after I left high school. In 2021, Clemmie Harvey wrote an article. She argued that Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) was more relevant then than ever. I would agree:
“The song opens with the importance of wearing ‘sunscreen.’ Framed within the narrative of a public health announcement, Lee Perry’s booming voice relays just how vital wearing sunscreen is. This fact is undisputed in its universality. It seems like such an obvious piece of advice, yet as Perry continues to speak we become aware of what the rest of the track will address, ‘Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.’ The song begins to touch upon the bizarre and chaotic nature of the experience of living, yet it does so in such a human way. The very words themselves incapsulate what it means to be human, to live a life that is often messy and chaotic, full of nuance and contradiction. It is obvious that this type of song would lend itself to parodying; that the glib cynics within us label it preachy, lumbering and obvious, with one harsh critic condemning it as ‘so bloody non-committal’(Tom Ewing, Freaky Trigger). Yet to me, it has a degree of heightened awareness, so much so that it moves beyond the realms of the tacky self-help song and becomes an encapsulation of what it means for somebody to experience life in such an individual and nuanced yet at the same time highly universal way. Towards the end of the final verse, we hear the words, ‘Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past/From the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts/And recycling it for more than it’s worth.’
It is this part in particular that resonates; the song is so conscious about what it means to impart wisdom and how that wisdom will be received. The cleverness of the song lies within this self-consciousness. It is aware of what it means to give advice and how that advice will be interpreted and skewed to accommodate simultaneously the universal as well as the singular experience.
This self-consciousness and self-awareness is further found when Lee Perry’s resounding voice states the lines,
‘Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults/If you succeed in doing this, tell me how’ .
It is because of these moments of heightened humility and awareness, that I find myself able to connect with the words. At the very same time that the song dispenses advice, it aligns itself with the very notion that by being a person means that there is no one way to live a life, no one way to take on advice and utilize it and there is no one way to feel. The song creates a thoughtful space of reflection, where the words themselves simultaneously give guidance yet have an understanding of what it means to be human in a life that is so full of different experiences. It allows for a deliberation upon the chaos, the anxieties and the insecurities that everybody feels at some point or other. It doesn’t attempt to gloss over the parts of being human that we are encouraged to hide on a daily basis, but creates a space in which these parts, these anxieties, worries, fears and apprehensions can be reflected upon.
The advice itself is a subtle combination of the quotidian as well as the profound. It is advice that reaches out and seeps into the fabric of what it means to have a very average but happy day as well as touching upon the various profound and life-changing moments that we can experience from time to time. It is this combination that makes it so accessible. Luhrmann structures the track in such a way that allows for moments of the deep and the profound, ‘Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts/ Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours,’ as well as for more lighthearted moments which include reminding us all to ‘Floss’ and ‘Stretch’ and ‘Dance’ and ‘Read the instructions.’ The backing track is layered behind Perry’s voice and starts off as a single steady beat. As the track continues and Perry starts dispensing more heartfelt and more poignant pieces of advice, the backing track subtly starts to become more layered. Soft choral singing which rises and falls, frames the words and lifts them in such a way that they become even more powerful and even more transporting. Just like the nature of the advice given, the backing track subtly ebbs and flows from single instrumental layers to a much more built up sound.
For me, it is a song that celebrates the moderate. It is a song about understanding what it means to have moments of fear and chaos but knowing that they never last. Luhrmann taps into the tension that oscillates between the active control we have and the passivity that comes with certain elements of everyday living, ‘Whatever you do/ don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either/Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s’. Hearing these words offer a certain degree of release. We cannot control everything that happens and there is no point in trying. He also addresses the age old anxiety of attempting to control and understand our futures.
‘Don’t worry about the future/ Or worry, but know that worrying/ Is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum/The real troubles in your life /Are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind/ The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.’
These are perhaps the most well known and most quoted lines of the whole track and for good reason. Luhrmann likens one of the most profound anxieties that the human race has dealt with since the beginning of existence and likened it to something as quotidian and menial as chewing bubblegum. He translates something so vast, so expansive and intangable into something that we can easily understand and relate to. These lines offer up a sense of surrender, a sense of freedom to live in the present and an attempt to acknowledge that we are all passive beings subject to the passing of time and subject to what the future may hold.
The surge of seemingly disconnected advice, ‘Be kind to your knees/ you’ll miss them when they’re gone,’ or ‘Get to know your parents/ you never know when they’ll be gone for good,’ reaches out and touches both something on the surface as well as something deep within. It celebrates the joy of being moderate and patient, something that I personally find extremely comforting right now as our lives slowly move back to some reflection of normality yet a normality underpinned by a slight hum of nervous anxiety. There is a timeless quality to the track. Whether people find it patronizing, whimsical, tacky or profoundly moving, it gets under our skin and sticks as demonstrated by the fact that it is still popular today and is still quoted. We find ourselves in very strange times right now and nobody knows what will or what can happen in the future. But what we do know, is that it is more important than ever to be kind and moderate with yourself, to understand and listen to your needs and to take the days as they come”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Archive Photos/Getty Images
It is amazing how, back in 1997, when the Internet was new, this amazing song was almost like a statement of life. Something important that should be spread about the world. Baz Luhrmann and Mary Schmich shared with The Guardian their recollections of the song and what Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) means now:
“Baz Luhrmann, director and song producer
In 1997, my music supervisor Anton Monsted and I decided to make a charity album with remixes of songs from my films. I was working on a new version of Rozalla’s rave banger Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good) that, for Romeo + Juliet, we had turned into an ecclesiastical song with vocals from Quindon Tarver and King’s College Choir.
Around this time, a graduation speech apparently by Kurt Vonnegut offering life advice was spreading on a new invention called the world wide web. It was what we would now call viral – but it was also a hoax. Some kid had taken a column by a smart, respected columnist called Mary Schmich, who wrote for the Chicago Tribune, and instead credited it to the Slaughterhouse-Five author.
We thought it would make a great spoken word song. We found a voiceover artist, Lee Perry, to impersonate an imagined Vonnegut and spent a great deal of time getting it right, so that it felt naturally spoken and rhythmic.
We submitted it to the local radio station, trying to get Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) heard, but they said it was too long. I thought: ‘Well, they’ll let me on the late-night arts show.’ So I said: ‘I’ll talk about whatever you want as long as you play it.’ Two minutes into the track, the guy in the booth was tapping on the glass pointing because, literally like a movie, the lights on the switchboard were going crazy. The next day, it was the biggest record in Australia.
In the US, I followed the same playbook, getting it played on college radio when the big stations wouldn’t touch it, and it was a breakout smash. Jay Leno even flew out the choir and Lee Perry to perform it on his show and Danny DeVito asked to use it for The Big Kahuna. In the UK, I got word it was going to be No 1 before it was even officially released.
It was one of those things that just struck a chord. When we recorded the track, we thought there might be a chance they’d be playing it next year, or even the year after, so we recorded alternate openings for the Class of ’98, ’99 and then 2000, but we never believed we’d run out of years, that we’d be recording it in other languages, or still be talking about it in 2024.
A lot of people thought I was the voice. It still happens. I remember being in a hotel in Texas and handing my credit card over to the kid at the desk and he went: “Oh, aren’t you that rock star, the one with the record that speaks?” Another time, I was in the gym and there was a MTV show about one-hit wonders playing. The voiceover went: “What Aussie film director had a one hit wonder in 1997? Find out when we come back!”
Mary Schmich, writer
I was a columnist at the Chicago Tribune for many years. One Friday morning in May 1997, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to write about. As I walked to work from my home along Lake Michigan, I saw a young woman sunbathing and I thought: “I hope she’s wearing sunscreen.” I hadn’t at her age and I really regretted it. I had reached a point in my life where I was ready to give out advice.
Graduation speeches in the US are a big deal so I thought it would be fun to write a fake one. I got some M&Ms, grabbed a cappuccino and started writing. I finished it and felt pretty good about it. It went in print the next day. I got a few nice letters and people seemed to like it, but that was it. Then I started getting emails from people saying that something strange was happening, that their cousin or whoever had sent them Kurt Vonnegut’s graduation address to Massachusetts Institute of Technology – and it was my column. I laughed out loud, but then began to panic that I had somehow subconsciously plagiarised Vonnegut.
I said yes and Baz created the Sunscreen Song. I loved it. It was startling at first to hear it spoken by a man, but it totally works and I don’t think it would have been so widely heard in that era, sadly, if spoken by a woman.
There are a couple of things in there that are a little outdated, like the line about paper bank statements; but I did hear my own voice telling me to keep my love letters when clearing out my closet a couple of years ago. Advice, after all, as the column notes, is a form of nostalgia and when you give advice you are really talking to yourself.
A big skincare company wanted to use it for a sunscreen advert. I’m glad I said no. It’s very personal to me. I was going through a very hard time in my life when I wrote it. I think somehow people sense that between the lines. Saying yes to Baz was a whole different thing as his song captured its spirit. It’s still deeply moving that it has affected so many people. I’m incredibly grateful this thing came out of my mind and heart and fingers on an afternoon and endured. And my friends still ask me: “Are you wearing sunscreen?”.
There did seem to be this split between some critics who were dubious and at times insulting about the song. Those who lobbed criticism its way. The polemic is the way the song took off and was a chart success. People really responding to it. I hear Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) played on the radio still. It has not really had any updated for the years since. In 1999, when I bought it as a single, I was not sure whether I would listen to the song years later. I was reacting to its immediate impact and popularity. Twenty-five years down the line, this amazing Spoken Word song still holds amazing power and resonance. If some lines or ideas are a bit dated, I think that the advice offered up…
STILL stands strong and hits hard.