Joe Cocker's Cocker Happy was a number one album in Australia in 1971; it was an album you couldn't avoid. Especially at the start of summer, around December, when I found myself with another crew to hang out with. South Box Hill and hanging out with Sharpies wasn't working out. Warm beer and late nights when I was only fifteen were just painful.
I had a friend who lived on one of the new estates. I'd go round to his place and listen to records, then wander around all the new streets and houses. We met a couple of girls and started chatting to them. I quite fancied one of them. Her name was Bernadette.
We became kind of friends, and I would go around to her place a lot. Her dad was a teacher who made his own ginger beer under the house. She taught me to play canasta. She played Cocker Happy on repeat.
One day near Christmas, she let me kiss her in the long grass behind her house. And then she came to the New Year's Eve party with her new boyfriend, who was taller and cooler than me. I was devastated.
I didn't go back to her house. But I bought a copy of the album.
