They say you should write about what you know, call on experience for inspiration, and use reality as a creative launchpad. And that is precisely what Tim Shady has done here with the new one from Scared of Sharks. Having had a bit too much of a good time at a rave, he proceeded to lose his wallet, keys, and phone and then catch the last train home… unfortunately not his home as this train was going in the opposite direction. The resulting series of unfortunate events are relayed with hilarity in “Last Train to Wyong.”
Over clockwork beats and mellifluous and meandering bass lines, we follow the catalog of wrong moves and awkward encounters, which are occasionally accentuated by slashes of abrasive guitar and strange electronic warbling sonic songbirds.
It’s a sort of updated take on the idea of Woody Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant.”…sort of…but instead of fly-tipping and draft dodging, we get a more relatable story of post-rave napping and fare-dodging… the spirit is similar, and the spoken word delivery, almost prose put to a beat, comes from a similar sonic place.
It’s fun and relatable. Okay, we haven’t all found ourselves heading for Wyong when we should be in Wollongong. Still, I’ll be the first to admit that I have, in the past, slept through my stop after gigs in London and alighted at the unplanned landmarks of Bristol, some 40 miles on from my intended destination. I’m sure we all have a similar story tucked away.
This track and more are on Scared of Sharks’ debut EP, Double Happiness, which is out now.
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