Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. Hello and welcome to you. Terrific to have you with me.
Do you remember this song? The father said she has to have a name Not the same as her mum’s, but a name just the same. A little ray of sunshine has come into the world. A little ray of sunshine in the shape of a girl.
Well that song, like many of his, has been signposts for thousands of Australian lives. He was one of the pioneers of Aussie rock, one of the country’s finest singer-songwriters and one of the most successful artists and producers to find international fame. Today my very special guest is Brian Cadd and I’m sure you’re going to find it fascinating as Brian takes us on a journey through his early days with the band The Group to his collaborations with the Little River Band’s Glenn Shorrock all the way to finally fulfilling a lifelong dream to put out a solo country rock album.
What a great name, A Breath of Fresh Air. Thank you. Fantastic.
Let’s talk about you, Brian, because I know quite a bit about you having lived in Australia all my life and grown up with your music but there are a whole lot of people listening to this that may not know the name Brian Cadd and may not, well, they probably have experienced your music in some shape or form but I’d like, if you don’t mind, for you to walk us through your life from how it all started out to where we are today. Good heavens, how long you got? I’ve got a while. Let me start you off.
What I know about you is that you were born in Perth in Australia on the west coast and you came to prominence first with a band called The Group. Tell us how you even got to that point. Well, I was the eldest kid and my mother was a failed soprano.
She was a very good singer but she was terrified of audiences. So when I came along, it was a little like most houses back then had some little piano in the cupboard or whatever that they’d inherited from a great aunt. As a little kid, I started banging out little melodies.
So she was inspired to transfer her ambitions, if you like, to me. So she became the archetypal stage monster. And so she volunteered me for everything from that moment on, even though I could barely play.
When I was 12, she volunteered me for a Christmas special on the very new Channel 7 in Perth and then about two weeks later, people from 7 rang and said to her, would you be interested in him playing every week on television because we’re going to keep the band together and do it on our children’s channels. She said, oh, of course. Yes, absolutely.
Thanks. So for a year, I spent playing piano on television. That was it for me.
Brian knew from that moment on what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. In 1966, he joined a band called The Group and suddenly he was tasked with writing songs. The drummer and I had never written a song.
So they put us together. Thanks very much. Then we were in the garage, just sitting there looking at each other.
And he started doing tick, tick, tick on his cymbals and I went ding, ding. And after about 10 minutes, we came up with Woman, You Broke Me. It was the first song I ever wrote.
It was a hit. And from that time on, I spent my time between being in bands and then being a solo artist and also being a writer and producer. That was a time when Melbourne was going through an enormous trad jazz scene.
So I was really, you know, in great demand. And then all of a sudden, the mods came in and pow, everyone had Flares and Paisley and we all went mod. And so I finished up in a rock and roll band and eventually in The Group.
Were you challenged by that change in culture? No, I think we embraced it because it wasn’t driven by outside forces. It was driven by the very audiences that we were playing jazz to. And then they all went, oh, we won’t do this anymore.
Now the Beatles are here and Astos are here. So we want you to be like them. So it was a natural progression for audience and for us as musicians.
And of course, at that time in Australia, there were very, very few Aussie bands around. You guys were all looking to the UK and the US for inspiration, I’d imagine, weren’t you? That was it. Nobody wrote.
And, you know, even when you did television back in those days, television stations had no recording facilities. You just had the mod. And if it became a hit, it was out there.
But there were no real songwriters. Harry Vander and George Young was the new speed. Even my own life looks good.
Once they just don’t go. As they go too slow. I’ll have Rodney on my back.
You were really one of the forerunners in starting to write your own material here. What made you decide to start going down that path? Really just that one song. And then it went up the charts.
There was always really good reasons to keep going. Not that I had any idea how to write songs. But it doesn’t take much of a journey when you spend your whole life playing songs.
They’re not that more difficult. If you come up with a nice theme or title or something, you already kind of know the structures in your head because you’ve played thousands of songs that had great structures that were hits. As long as they’re starting from rule number one.
And it was an easier time too because it wasn’t a very high standard. We weren’t writing Sgt. Pepper. We were writing those nursery rhyme kind of songs back in those days.
It was an easier, much easier path. I wouldn’t want to be learning it today. What effect did it have on your life having that hit song? Oh, it was great.
It was enormous. In those days, records and radio charts were the most important thing. And it affected you dramatically immediately because you stopped being number 28 on the bill and became number four.
And then when it got higher, you became number one on the bill. And that affected you not only financially, but in terms of your fame, if you like, and where you played and being on television and being in Go Set all the time. And all those things only really happened if they were driven by records.
In those days, records were key. And, you know, we were lucky enough to have written some. And that song actually broke through to the US, didn’t it? Yeah, it had a bit of a go over there.
It’s only really that we had no actual connections with the US. It took forever for Australian music to break into the US. It was much easier for us to work in Europe and particularly in the UK because that’s where Australians always went.
So when we went to London, we weren’t that different from all the people there because we’d been in Europe for three years and we sounded just like they did. Whereas in America, it was a very different scene. The Beach Boys and all those kind of bands.
And that was quite a lot different from the English rock. So we were lucky in that sense. We came a sort of blessed path for a while.
We just went over and hung out with the Easybeats. So you kept writing during that time. And of course the group then enjoyed another hit in Such a Lovely Way.
Yeah, that was when we came back. Such a lovely way that you say goodnight, that alright Such a lovely way that you hold me tight I’d wish you’d stay all night Such a lovely way, such a lovely, lovely way to say alright Such a Lovely Way was a song that you also wrote? Yeah. So your writing career had certainly kicked off really well because in the interim you’d written some songs for Melbourne singer Ronnie Burns.
And then of course you started working with Russell Morris on what became one of Australia’s biggest songs, In The Real Thing. Yeah, that’s right. And that was Molly, or Ian as he was known.
He started out as our rodeo. But he was not a rodeo. The only thing he ever carried were drinks.
He never carried a microphone stand in his whole life. But he was great fun and a great vibe. Anyway, when he finally got involved with Russ, he just took the group, me and the other boys, into play.
And I arranged the signal and everything. And it was one of the great moments of my life. We had so many, including the kitchen sink, we had every single thing you could think of on that record.
And it was five and a half minutes long and everyone said no one in Australia was going to play that. That’s ridiculous. And I only did that play, but it was number one for about seven years.
Come and see the real thing Come and see the real thing Come and see Come and see the real thing Come and see the real thing Come and see There’s a meaning there But the meaning there doesn’t really mean a thing Come and see the real thing Come and see the real thing Come and see I am the real thing Na, na, na, na, na, na, na Na, na, na, na, na, na, na I am the real thing Try hard to understand what meaning is You’ll see me Try hard to understand what meaning is You’ll see me There’s a meaning there But the meaning there doesn’t really mean a thing Come and see the real thing, come and see the real thing, come and see I am the real thing I am the real thing I am the real thing I am the real thing Tryin’ hard to understand, but really not just seein’ Tryin’ hard to understand, but really not just seein’ There’s a meaning there, but the meaning there, there’s only made a thing Come and see the real thing, come and see the real thing, come and see I am the real thing Did you believe in it from the start? I believed in the record. The hook to the song was so obvious. I never understood what it really meant.
I don’t think Russell understands what it really means, or I don’t think Johnny Young understands what it really means. But the point was, it didn’t have just one hook, it had about three different hooks in it. Including Ma Ma Ma, which Russell probably told you was originally meant to be a guitar line, was meant to be sung.
And it was actually Molly’s genius that said, no, no, no, we’ll sing it, we’re not playing it. And that’s how good he was. He was so ridiculously unique.
I’m really proud to have been involved in that, it’s given me and Russell 60 years of friendship. The group then broke up in 1969, which led you to form the band Axiom. Why did you split up? You were enjoying quite a deal of success, what happened? Oh, it was just time.
Really, Ronnie Charles had already got it, he loved England and he didn’t really want to come home. So it just sort of, we melted away. That also coincided with a burgeoning friendship with Glenn.
And we both fell in love, him in the Twilights and me in the group in England, we were both there. And we both fell in love with the band, The Band. That changed our lives, both of us.
Indeed, a great many people around the world. And all of a sudden I thought, this is where I want to be, this country rock thing, whatever that is. Then I discovered Flying Burritos, who later on I joined, and The Birds and all those beautiful West Coast bands.
And there was such an impetus for him and I, and we formed a new band and called it Axiom. It was a great time for Australian music. We’d stopped being that we’re going to cover everything that the Kinks did to, let’s write some songs and do an album.
That was a pretty serious jump for us. You know, six or seven years before, there were virtually no songwriters in Australia. And all of a sudden we went from that into songwriters getting together and forming bands and writing songs in order to make records.
That was a big step. If all of the people were on the same side, there’d be no need to run, there’d be no need to hide. And all of us here in our grey ties and coats could go home.
If we’d just listen, sir, once again, to the reasons of one and the man. If we’d make all these things go to pass, then I could be on Arden’s old place. Home, home, going along to the sound of the military brass.
Home, home, lovers alone, laying on Arden’s old grass, once again. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. La, la, la, la, la, la, la.
So daily we’d march in the grey and the red to lick them first time, like the good general said. We’d never have thought that it so very few would go home. You hadn’t started writing about Australia yet, despite being an Australian songwriter, you were still writing about other things that people knew about rather than your own home territory.
Well, the reason for that was twofold. First of all, because we were still getting over the band, you know, and their whole music genre was based on the, you know, basically the Civil War, or those times in America’s past. The other thing was that when I was very, very young, my best friend, his dad was obsessed with the American Civil War.
And when you went round to his place to play, in the living room, there were tables on which were set the various battles of the Civil War with little soldiers and everything. But from about six or seven, I just fell in love with it. When I wrote Actual Grass, that was based on just this mythical bloke who’s trying to get home, you know.
And it came out at the same time as Australians in Vietnam. So it was my version of a protest song. And of course, the very next one you did, was the classic A Little Ray of Sunshine that I’m sure you’re still dining out on today, because it still gets radio play everywhere.
Now the last time I spoke with you, you refused to tell me the real story about A Little Ray of Sunshine. Are you prepared to tell me? You can’t see it, but Brian is vigorously shaking his head. What could the big secret about this song be? Hang in to find out.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. The song we’re talking about is A Little Ray of Sunshine.
It was written by Brian Cadd and Don Moody and released by their group Axiom in 1970. Her father said she has to have a name not the same as her mum’s but a name just the same. A little ray of sunshine has come into the world.
A little ray of sunshine in the shape of a girl. We’ll show her the dress that she’ll wear with the gold flowing hair that nature provided. A little ray of sunshine has come into the world.
A little ray of sunshine in the shape of a girl. A little ray of sunshine I want to know if you think she looks good in her pink. Her grandma has bought her her own little daughter.
She can make you feel that it’s all worthwhile. Only by her smile. Only by her smile.
The song has been on people’s lips ever since it appeared on the charts but its meaning has always been shrouded in mystery. Some say it was inspired by the birth of Don Moody’s first child Brian has often said the song was written about his niece to celebrate her arrival. Are you prepared to tell me, still not? No, because it involves somebody real whose life, who doesn’t know, and whose life would change if I told you the truth.
So it’s really never going to come out, Brian Catt? No, it’s not worth it now. I mean, you know, if she turned up on my deathbed I might tell her. But no, it doesn’t serve any purpose and it would make her life very difficult.
I do understand that. So tell us a little bit about how that song came about. Well, it did come about because of the situation that her parents were in, which is what makes the story very complicated.
You know, some dreadful stuff happened between the two of them. They should never have had a dance together much less get married and have a kid. But they did.
And they were very close to Axiom, this couple. And we were very knocked out by it. This beautiful little girl arrived, you know.
And there was such animosity and fighting. You know how couples, when they fight, there’s people who vie for the girl and people who barrack for the bloke. It sort of divided us up.
And I was determined that this little baby was going to be acknowledged. I wrote a song about this girl. So it’s a very personal song for me.
But what was lucky about it was that because it got so much play, and it was at a time when our audiences were all young and all having babies, it had to come out in, you know, the 80s. You know, it would have been a different period. It came out in the mid-60s or a bit later.
All of our contemporary audience were young marrieds. They were all having kids. I wish I had just even $10.
But every time somebody said to me, you know, when we brought our little Roslyn home from the hospital, we heard her in the car, So I have a theory that there’s a radio network that only operates outside maternity wards and in only places. It’s certainly given a lot of people a lot of pleasure over time, hasn’t it? Yeah, and the fact that I’ve now been blessed with five granddaughters makes it even more special. Oh, Mother Earth’s sunshine Makes the fire in me burn Oh, Mother Earth’s sunshine Oh, Mother Earth’s sunshine That’s one of the very few songs I’ve ever heard even about anyone I know.
So Axiom was going great guns, and then Axiom disbanded. How come everybody took a break at that point? Oh, the same thing happened. We zigged when we should have zagged.
Axiom needed to go to America. It was an American band, American sounding band. You know, our heroes were all American bands.
We didn’t sound remotely like the Trox. We sounded like all those American bands, and we wrote those kind of songs. As I said, it was almost impossible for bands back in those days to go to America.
There were very few people that actually went at that time. Olivia only got there, you know, in the 70s. There were virtually nobody at all.
But once again, it was really easy for us to go to England, which was a gigantic stupid move because we went to the very place that we were trying not to emulate or trying not to fit in with because we could, and we got signed to CBS. A guy called Shel Talmy, who produced The Who and all those great bands, he loved us, and we recorded the whole album in London exactly the way we wanted to do it, all our armies and all our bits and pieces, and we left it there for him to mix. When we got back to England, the whole album was covered in brass and strings.
It was like a Tony Bennett album. It was the most horrible thing to do to an album. But he loved the songs, and he really liked the idea, but he was locked back in that genre, and we were just so heartbroken, and they weren’t going to take it off.
They released it just exactly like it was. After the failure of the group, the failure of The Twilights, and then us performing this band, and having the album exactly what it was, the songs we exactly wanted, it just broke everyone’s heart. So Glenn stayed in England, and then the rest of us came back, and then that’s when I started my solo career.
Such a tall and gentle man Such a strong and slender hand Reached out and kissed me With his loving hand Jesus Showed me the way to find the way Showed me the way to find the way Nailed the moon across all day I heard all that he had to say Reached out and touched me With his loving hand Oh, give them party I think all I want to do Is I pray the man is OK Being an Australian band at that time and not really being able to compete with either the UK or the US bands, was there a sense of not being good enough? Probably, and we were thwarted at every turn. Let’s suppose we had been able to figure out how to go to Los Angeles, which happened for me only about five or six years later, but it was way after that. We might have been signed to Electra or New Orleans or something, and we might have worked with an American producer or we might have gone on the road with Poco.
All of my ideas could have happened there. None of them were ever going to happen in England, and that’s what killed us. We just did a stupid thing.
Your decision to go solo was as a result of all of these disappointments? No. When I came back, I said, I’ve been on the road now for, I don’t know, ten years. Felt like my whole life.
And I’d been in bands that whole time, and I really had become interested in recording. And I wanted to produce records, because I knew I could write. And I wanted to get projects where I could write and I could produce.
So I finished up with Ron Tudor. I worked for Fable for a while, his first label. And then he and I formed Bootleg Records.
And we had some real success. The first thing we did was do an album on me, and that caused the Ginger Man single. Ginger Man came out and nobody really thought of anything because it was quite different from anyone.
And I particularly, I thought, well, he can release it if he wants to, but I don’t imagine it’s going to be hit anywhere. Well, it was massive hit. And there I was, back on the road again.
I wish you’d have told me more Ginger Man Follow me home Ginger Man Told me how they worked him hard Guess he just fell down dead I wish you’d have cleared my head Ginger Man Follow me home, babe Again and again Ginger Man Follow me home Ginger Man Follow me home, babe I had a lot of great things happen in a very small period of time. Things like Alvin Purple and Class 74 and all those great projects that weren’t record projects as well. The Australian movies, right? And I produced a lot of acts.
I had the best time, one of the great times of my life. Despite this, Brian still couldn’t get over his obsession with still wanting to be in America. But instead of simply going to visit, he moved there.
But although he found success as a writer and producer, he never reached the same level of artist success that he’d enjoyed on his home soil. It took me years before I actually made another record. A lot of the writing that you were doing, you had a lot of well-known artists cover your songs, didn’t you? Oh, yeah.
You know, that was the moment that was driving me. I lived in Los Angeles. Everyone lived in Los Angeles.
You know, you met famous people and famous producers and famous arrangers in the bar on Sunset, you know, at one o’clock in the morning. Everyone was everywhere all the time. It wasn’t hard.
And as much as it was a big industry, it was still quite small and you could find people fairly easily. So networking and some publishing deals and stuff like that got me into the writing realm because it’s the only one that’s really continued for 60 years. The number of songs that people recorded, people like Gene Pitney, Glen Campbell, Dobie Gray, Cilla Black, Wayne Newton, Bonnie Tyler, Joe Cocker, even Ringo Starr, and you actually had your biggest success when the Pointer Sisters covered Love Is Like A Rolling Stone, which appeared on the B-side of their version of Fire.
Share a story around how one of those recordings actually came about for you. Pointer Sisters is a good example because that was absolutely networking. I’d gotten very close to Dee Murray and Davey Johnson from Elton’s band, and at that point Davey started hanging with the Pointers, playing with them on their demos, and I think he did a few live gigs with them, stuff like that.
And then it came time for them to make an album, and Davey and I just demoed Love Is Like A Rolling Stone. When it came time to talk about songs for their album, he played it and they loved it. So a publisher rings me and he says, now I don’t know whether this is good news or not.
He said, I’ll tell you anyway, he said, their next single is going to be a Bruce Springsteen song called Fire, and he said the Pointers Sisters have insisted that your song is on the B-side. And it sold 12 million records, and the killer is you get paid the same for the B-side as you do for the A-side. So that was the greatest non-hit I ever had.
You still hadn’t accomplished your dream of turning your talents to country music though, even though Charlie Daniels’ band covered in 1985 on their No Stone Unturned album, they covered You’re Still Hurting Me. So you’re getting closer, and then you took yourself off to Nashville. Yeah, and that was because it was the end of the 80s, and everything in Los Angeles was hip-hop.
There was no other kind of music. You couldn’t get records cut by anybody. And all my major writing pals had all moved to Nashville, just songwriter heaven.
Every person was a songwriter. I can remember, I arrived there first by myself. I got a cab from Nashville Airport into Franklin, where I was staying, and on the way in, in the cab, the cab driver pitched me a cassette of his songs, and I thought, I have arrived.
This is where I’m supposed to be. It was the greatest five years, and I had the best time. Moonlight and roses are the golden Champagne, a little love, and a wedding ring Every time she leaves, it’s on a rainy day This happened before, don’t come to me I don’t want no more Let go, it ain’t worth it if it hurts you Let go, you don’t need it if you see it don’t get Like a good old wine, rock and roll feels real good Let it move you so, if it hurts, just say her name Baby, let go Brian’s reign in Nashville lasted several years.
There he joined the Flying Burrito Brothers in 91, and toured with them for a couple of years, before returning to Australia in 1993.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. The Flying Burrito Brothers are a country rock band, best known for their influential debut album from 1969.
The group was founded by Graham Parsons and Chris Hillman, both formerly of the Byrds, but the band underwent many personnel changes and has existed ever since in various incarnations. One of the Flying Burrito Brothers is a guy called John Beale. And he and I were best friends from years before in Los Angeles and we wrote there and we produced lots of people at that studio in Nashville.
And the Flying Burrito Brothers decided they were going to reform and do a new album. Not that there were that many of them alive, but they were trying. So they started sending songs over to John for us to demo, you know, just so they could buy him a record company.
They all lived in Los Angeles because there were no singers there. I sang the demos. Anyway, it went on for about a month and then finally one of the guys rang me and said, it’s just too hard this way.
Why don’t you join the band? So it just happened like that. And all of a sudden I was in the Flying Burrito. And I had a great three years with them, toured all over the world.
And those kind of bands, their audiences are very low, extremely low. We were playing 25 years after they’d played in Germany and the places were raging. The audiences would turn up in cowboy outfits with cap guns and sheriff’s badges because the Germans could never figure out the difference between country and western.
They thought it was all the same thing, not realising that they were country rock. And the first night we ever played anywhere in Germany, I’m on stage playing around over here. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.
I said, did you almost hear what I said? He said, oh, they’re just cap guns. I looked down and there’s all these great big Germans with their cap guns out firing in the air. It was terrifying.
Lucky you weren’t playing in America. They wouldn’t have been cap guns. No, they would have been much more brutal.
Well, I pulled out of Pittsburgh, rolled on down Mason Street. In a way, it was completely recircled because the firing and the birds and people like that were people that influenced me enormously back when I first started. You can’t be afraid of change, can you, in an industry like yours? You finish one chapter without any fear about what’s coming next.
You just step forward into the unknown, I guess, with the confidence that all’s going to be well, something else is going to come up. Oh, I think it was something I consciously wanted to do. I always found that if I skipped slightly to the left or slightly to the right or just tried this because I’d never tried one of those before, if I was keen about it, if I happened to be any good at it, it would kind of launch me into a new phase.
So in the same way as writing for film was slightly different from writing for artists, it was still the same box and dice, you know, it was still the same thing. And in the same way as working with country bands and working with country artists, there’s still all verses and choruses. It’s not that different, but it adds another string to your boat.
It meant when one string got a bit slack, the other one would tighten up a bit, you’d be over there doing a movie or working with a country artist, or you’d be on the road with Russell or something. You know, there was always lots of things, and there still is. That’s probably the reason I’m still here, I suppose, because I can never get a break.
You know, I can’t see any reason to stop other than if it was a physical thing. I have no plans on retiring because I can’t do anything else. I can’t bowl and I can’t play golf.
All I can do is cook. I can’t see anything, and I don’t want to start a restaurant. Brian Caddy, you’re telling me, though, that there’s a slight disappointment that you never reached the heights that you would have liked to? No, not really, because I just did it in a different way.
The fact that all those people recorded my songs over all those years was such an incredible thing to happen to me. In the end, it was sort of, well, that’s just the part that I didn’t get to happen. But, you know, I might have done that and not written the songs for other people, and I did.
Not being involved in all of those areas of the industry that enabled me to meet those people and work with them. You know, that’s six of one and a half dozen others. See her at the marketplace Where she comes from nobody knows And now that you ask me I guess I like the way she wears her clothes The way she smiles at him His heart just swells and grows and grows You think I’m telling you fairy tales I said whoa Don’t you know it’s magic Oh, baby, it’s magic Look in her eyes, they’re a little bit hazy Paradise coming to us, look in her eyes Don’t you know it’s magic Baby, oh, baby, it’s magic Magic all planned right For a woman in love You certainly managed to stay friends with all your long-time buddies, with Glenn Shorrock, who you’d been in Axiom with, of course, who fronted Little River Band for such a long time, with Russell Morris, who did The Real Thing, and you did a country album with him in 2011.
So I guess you managed to appease all sides of you and get your piece that way. Absolutely. I figured out that if I had a sandbox with enough toys in it, I didn’t need to play with one really hardly.
Spread the love. That translates perfectly to my new grandson. Because they only last about a minute on this toy and then they go to bed.
Yeah, that’s right. I’ve been like that, my mate. They call that something else, though, when you’re an adult.
What do they call it? Attention deficit? Yes. Shut up. In 2016, you released a new studio album with the Bootleg Family Band called Bulletproof.
In 2019, which was the last time we spoke, everything in my mind is pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, you did Silver City. And now your latest offering is, I guess, what you’ve been hoping for for such a long time, your very first solo country album entitled Dream Train. Fill us in on that one a bit.
It was one of those ones where I just thought, oh, it’s time to do a new album. It’ll be fun. The record company’s going, oh, you want to do one? You know, when that happens, I’d sift through all my notebooks and little recordings of little snatches of things.
And things started to gravitate towards a song list, like a bag of ideas. And when I looked in the bag, I realised that a lot of them were country. It just happened that way, because I picked things that I really liked and I thought, there’s a pattern here.
I think that that’s probably a sign. And it probably wouldn’t have happened except that living up here, I discovered this amazing studio on the Gold Coast and this lunatic that runs it, who’s wonderful. And he has this great house band of country players and they record Williamson and Troy and all those people.
They make all the great records. And they’re all locals. So we just decided, you know, book a few days and go in with the loonies and see what happens.
And after about five days, we realised we had an album and that it was a country record. A song away from number one Feels like I’m almost dead Ridin’ the dream train Can’t remember where we’ve been Ridin’ the dream train We won’t never ride again Ridin’ the dream train Can’t remember where we’ve been Ridin’ the dream train We won’t never ride, never ride Never ride, never ride again They call it Broadway Though it’s not the one I know Wealth and fame are hidin’ here Down on Music Row Touches his face with baseball caps Memories of Hank No respect for the pioneers There’s no one left to thank Ridin’ the dream train Can’t remember where we’ve been Ridin’ the dream train We won’t never ride again Ridin’ the dream train Can’t remember where we’ve been Ridin’ the dream train We won’t never ride, never ride Never ride, never ride again I am so proud of it now. It’s really one of the nicer things that have happened to me as an artist.
What’s your favourite track on it? A song called The One That Cut Away. What are you referring to? I’ll never tell. Oh, come on.
Not another story you’ll never tell. That’s too much. No, that’d really get me out of trouble.
Come on, we won’t tell Amanda. You know what? And I’ve said this a bit before. If Let Go had a younger sibling, it would be this song.
They’re both in the same vein and not the same subject, but they both are enormously gorgeous to sing and they are very personal to people. Most every one of us has had One That Got Away and so it relates exactly. I mean, I sing it, I look out at the audience and they go… You can tell that some of them are at least thinking about The One That Cut Away.
So I’m very happy with that and that’s in the country charts now and downloading very well. And I’m so happy that I’ve been accepted in this light because, you know, it was a bit of a sell. I thought, maybe they’ll just think I’m cashing in on country music or whatever, but a lot of people realise that that’s an old, old path for me.
One of your earliest desires. Do you pass right by me You didn’t know that I was there You looked into each other’s eyes His hand touching your ear The love you have is still so real Just like the pain that I still feel The want in you hasn’t changed in 20 years I guess it was impossible Nowhere to begin I’ve been with her for way too long And you just married him You could never ever know How hard it was for me to go To walk away from all we might have been That single moment When I knew we’d never be The only choice Stay with him Or risk it all with me A thousand words inside But nothing I could say You’re the one that got away But if it had been different If we’d started out brand new Would she have looked like you Life is never how it seems So having you remains a dream I finally got to tell myself the truth You must be really thrilled to be at the helm of the power of a great song. To be able to influence people.
And it’s been six decades that you’ve been doing that. What is it about songs that affect people so greatly do you think? I believe in your head you’ve got this fast RAM hard drive and it stores all of the things that ever happened to you. And the reason I know this is because very often I’ll write a song and I’ll get almost everything right but there’d be one line that I can’t either come up at all with or that is not right.
And over the years I’ve learnt to not worry about it and just leave it. Two days later or a week later I’ll be driving somewhere I’ll be in the shower I’ll be in the middle of the supermarket and I’ll sing the part and when I get to that line the right words will arrive. Now I know it’s my subconscious continues to work on the line sorting through my massive hard drive at 77 it’s a massive hard drive and finds the one that I need.
If you think about that in terms of your hard drive if I write a line that says hot blonde in a red sports car you won’t get my picture of that you’ll get your picture of that. In the same way that anything that happens in a song that talks about anything will trigger something in your hard drive. That’s my theory and I think that’s why it works because you’re not thinking about my song you’re thinking about yours.
What an incredible power to have. A lot of fun. I bet it is and it continues to be.
Brian Cadd thank you for sharing all your stories and your wisdom with us. It’s been awesome. Thank you for having me.
Brian Cadd’s Dream Train album is the country album he was always destined to make. I definitely think you should get on board with it too. Thanks so much for your company today.
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning all about Australia’s own Brian Cadd. Don’t forget if you have a request for a guest just get in touch with me through the website abreathoffreshair.com.au It’d be my pleasure to try and chase that person up for you and get them onto the show. Can I count on you joining me again next week? I hope so.
Take care in the meantime, won’t you? Bye now.