The song arrives wholly unexpected as I crawl through the snarl of peak-hour traffic in a smart car connected to every passing tower. Spotify will do that. You punch in “British folk rock pop” and get Van Morrison’s Sweet Thing.
A rush of memory and I’m gone. Suddenly it’s 1986 and I’m driving the Pacific Highway with her, somewhere south of Lennox Head, in a 58 Studebaker coupé, top down, the smell of wood smoke, clifftop visions of the great South Pacific pearl and a roadside kiss, lost in the arms of a beautiful girl …