A song a day: The Specials - A Message to you Rudy

This song is a sentimental favourite of mine. While I knew it forever from over the years, I will always associate it from when I moved to Sydney in the late 90's. Reeling from a bad break up, I basically spent my first year in Sydney playing pool every night in the Oxford pub in Newtown. The pub itself was a run down hole filled with punks, anarchists and hippies, sticky carpets from years of beer spills and the best juke box I ever came across - great old punk records, stuff like Nick Cave etc (Henry's Dream is an excellent drinking album by the way). It was the one pub around that had a license until 4am so inevitably everyone I knew in the area would end up there at some stage during an evening (the only time I was ever mugged was stumbling home at 2am from the Oxford on a Monday night - a frickin' Monday). Without doubt A Message to you Rudy was played at least five or six times a night and was always met with a resounding cheer and singalong. No matter how many times I heard it I couldn't help but smile and drink up - even hearing it now makes me want to grab a beer. The Oxford was eventually replaced and upgraded to a shiny monstrosity called the Zanzibar and the soul and charm of that area was lost to me but for a couple of years there, that pub and that song were part of my daily life. Raise your beer in memory and play it one more time...

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