TO AN UNSEEN EURYDICE

First was this bloke Orpheus who had the hots for Eurydice.  But so did Aramaus (or someone or two).  The big A was chasing her through some joker's garden but she trod on a red bellied brown and it bit her.  So she flaked.

The old Orph got uptight at this and he went around strumming his lyre, a sort of early guitar - before the Fender.  An old muso mate, who was into R & B, told me that the mob at that time had voted him in as top of the business.  A sort of Jimmy H. of the day.  Real cool.

Somehow Orpheus wangles a pass down to the nether regions which is flash for HELL.  He was checking out on young Eurydice and still plucking away and tearing off some of the best riffs you'd ever want to hear.

This impressed one and all, even Pluto and Persephone who ran the joint on contract from HADES who was the number one trump.  So P. and P. put the hard word on the boss to let Orpheus take Eurydice back home.

It was agreed between all parties that it was a goer as long as Orph didn't look back at his bird an the way out.

You wouldn't want to know.  Just as they reach the top of the Big Escalator, being dopey he did (have a screw - behind).

Puff.  No Eurydice.  Yeah, I know.  A real dickhead.

So he goes back home on his Pat Malone still knocking over the latest on the Greek top forty of the day.  But somehow he blew the plot and he lost the audience.  It happens all the time - even the best find it hard to make comebacks.

Eventually a gang of widgies from downtown Thrace tore him apart.  His head ended up rolling down some river and across to a place called Lesbos.  This last bit is hotly contested by a few of the girls who reckoned they wouldn't have any part of of a bloke an the island.

But all the time his noggin was in transit it kept yelling out for Eurydice and saying how much he loved her.

Wierd.

Real wierd.

Anyway, now being cactus himself,  he could of ended up down below with his chick after all.

No.  I don't know if he took his guitar.

[Eurydice Aroney interviewed me in the Alice in ’91 on the 'Death of Communism'  (shudder) ABC Drivetime so I did this for her as an intro when I met her for the first time at the studio].