™ Un-Buddhist Behavior
Celebrating two decades since its release, Bernard Fanning‘s debut solo album, Tea & Sympathy, remains a touchstone for a generation. The record’s enduring appeal, and the surprisingly chaotic circumstances surrounding the creation of its most optimistic track, “Wish You Well,” are at the heart of a reflective look back at a pivotal moment in the artist’s career.
Fanning readily admits the genesis of “Wish You Well” was fueled by a notably potent hangover. “I was getting ready too record Tea & Sympathy and leaving for the UK soon,” he explained. “I had all the final demos mixed and ready to go and I was excited,so I got drunk. I got wasted. I was living by myself for the first time in my life as well, so I was wholly unsupervised.” The result, penned in a mere 15 minutes the morning after, was a song that belied its origins. “I was just describing my situation! ‘Up so early, feel so shining’ – which was a lie. ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night’ – now, that was true. ‘Freight train rattled through my head’ – I was hungover as a donkey. ‘Whistle blowing, love is dead’ – I was in the last stages of a long-term relationship.” The demo was completed just two hours after waking.
The Hangover Song: Fanning wrote “Wish You Well” in just 15 minutes while recovering from a notable hangover,despite the song’s upbeat lyrics suggesting otherwise. The lyrics directly reflected his state and the end of a relationship.
the album itself was deeply rooted in the dissolution of that relationship. Reflecting on performing these songs 20 years later, Fanning acknowledges the frequently enough-mythologized connection artists have with their work. “There’s this kind of myth-making among artists, I think, that every time thay perform a song it’s infused with all the meaning they had at the beginning.Sometimes you’re on stage and you’re like, ‘Fuck, did I leave the iron on?'” He wryly notes the lack of spectacle surrounding his performances. “I can’t even concentrate for an hour and a half on what I am doing, and it’s not like there’s a whole lot of high kicking and pyrotechnics going on at my shows!”
Though, the lasting impact of Tea & Sympathy on its audience is what truly resonates with Fanning. “The thing about that record that is most satisfying for me is that it meant a lot to people.I primarily do this from a very selfish viewpoint: I want to write a song that I like. If other people like it as well, that’s just an unreal bonus. And they really, really liked it.”
Artistic Motivation: Fanning prioritizes personal satisfaction in his songwriting, viewing audience recognition as a welcome, but secondary, benefit.
A lighthearted detour revealed a humorous clarification regarding Fanning Dempsey National Park, the name of a band he formed with Paul Dempsey. “Did you know that greatwalks.com.au ran a piece clarifying that Fanning Dempsey National Park is not an actual national park?” Fanning laughed. “What? That’s hilarious. You know, there’s an actual place in Tassie called National Park – these guys made up a sign to put Fanning Dempsey above it and took us walking out there.It was stunning! That was grate. Paul [Dempsey] and I were giggling like schoolkids when that name came to us.”
Turning to musical influences, Fanning pinpointed john Lennon’s riff on “Day Tripper” as arguably the greatest of all time. “It’s got everything.It’s incredibly tuneful and melodic. The sound of the actual recording is just amazing – the people at EMI took that recording to a whole different place.” He then playfully acknowledged a contrasting opinion from fellow Australian musician Paul Kelly, who reportedly considers John Lennon’s “Imagine” to be one of the worst songs ever written. “This is good, balanced journalism,” Fanning quipped, adding, “I can’t agree with that and Paul’s right about almost everything.”
When prompted for his own controversial pop culture take, Fanning didn’t hesitate. “First Dates Australia is actually a masterpiece. It’s on at like 11pm, which is great when you are on tour. Sometimes after gigs you just flop into bed and say ‘Entertain me’. I don’t want anyone talking to me. I was on a big tour and played twentysomething weekends in a row and I kept coming across First Dates Australia. it’s totally contrived, but there was something about it. I know it’s wrong!”
Guilty Pleasure: fanning confessed to finding the reality TV show “First Dates Australia” to be a surprisingly compelling form of entertainment, despite acknowledging its contrived nature.
The demands of touring also impact Fanning’s sleep schedule.”I can get to sleep no problem, but I wake up really early. I have spent years trying all sorts of things. Recently I got a medical marijuana prescription, which didn’t do much to keep me asleep. I’ve found the best thing is just a lot of exercise. I’m high strung, to be honest. it is a fucking nightmare on tour because the best thing to help your voice recover is sleep. If I wake up, I watch some Premier League, or I read.”
Fanning’s enduring artistic touchstones include the album Cold Fact by Rodriguez. “The album I always return to is Cold fact by Rodriguez. He wasn’t very well-known until they made Searching for Sugar Man. But my brother was a student in the 70s – he was 10 years older than me,so I inherited all of his music. Rodriguez was popular in Australia as students were passing the tapes around. Cold Fact is 55 years old now and all of the stuff that he’s saying on that album is still completely appropriate. It just goes to show how terrible we are at learning from our mistakes and at looking after vulnerable people. That album,more than anything,inspired me to make political commentary in my music.” He also cited Caddyshack and This Is Spinal Tap as films he consistently revisits, calling the latter “a documentary.”
A glimpse into his domestic life revealed a rather unusual fridge item. “My daughter has some kind of rice concoction that she puts on her face as skincare. It looks like regurgitated milk, to be honest.”
Regarding instruments, Fanning holds a special affection for a dreadnought acoustic guitar purchased shortly before the creation of Tea & Sympathy. “It is indeed like having a favorite child, but I do have an acoustic guitar I bought a year or two before Tea & Sympathy. A really nice dreadnought guitar, a thousand times better than any other guitar I’d ever had. They’re expensive but beautifully made – big body and big sound. I don’t want to sound like a patronising prick here, but guitars improve with age.If you look after them, their tone becomes more mellow or more bright, depending on the timber. This guitar is just absolutely beautiful now it’s 20 years old. They should last 100 years if you look after them.”
Fanning recounted a memorable, and somewhat ironic, encounter with the Beastie Boys during a 2005 tour. “We [Powderfinger] were on the Big Day Out tour with the Beastie Boys in 2005. They had been talking in the press about how one of them [Adam Yauch] was a Buddhist and how he brings all these Buddhist tendencies to his life. But they were all really fucking rude and extremely unfriendly! So were all the people around them. My partner at the time was a Buddhist, so I had a pretty good understanding of how un-Buddhist the behaviour was. And at the end of the last show in Perth, they were playing after us and we were leaving in the car.And the Buddhist guy came up and did a Buddhist bow to me through the window of the car. And I gave him the finger.” He concluded with a laugh, “That’s not cringeworthy, that’s great! There you go. That is going to make my reputation with Guardianistas even lower. I know that’ll be the fucking headline – Bernard Fanning hates Buddhists!”
