The musical idea behind the chapter titles in my memoir, Life’s A Gamble
If you’ve read my book Life’s A Gamble, or even just thumbed through the pages, you might have picked up on a recurring theme around the chapter titles. They’re all drawn from the deep well of classic Australian rock and pop music. I didn’t set out from the start to do this. My original idea was to start each chapter with a lyric quote from one of my favourite songs, that I felt captured the mood of that particular chapter. In fact, the first draft I completed included all of these quotes. Songs from Pink Floyd, Ian Hunter, Death Cab For Cutie, Queen, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice Cooper, The Beatles, 10CC, Neil Young and more, all cleverly curated to set the tone for what was to come. My problem came when I applied to the rights owners for the clearances to use them in my book. The licensing fees, even to reproduce just a line or two of lyrics, started to add up to serious coin when multiplied across 21 chapters.
That first draft had already employed song names for a couple of chapter titles, so I went back to see if I could make it work across the entire book, and chapter by chapter, title by title, it began to reveal itself. In the end it amounted to 21 well known, dare I say, ‘classic’ Australian pop and rock songs. There are two that date from 1970 and then they make their way through the decades until the newest, which was a huge worldwide hit in 2011. The majority are from the 70’s and 80’s, the main period covered in my story. All of them were released as singles and most of them were major hits, including several number ones.
There is, however, a red herring among them. This was a simple mistake on my part when I was writing the book. I used what was the opening lyric for a song, and also an album title by that same band, but the song that contains that lyric goes by a different name. When I realised my error I looked for an alternative song title that could convey the mood I was after, but couldn’t find anything better. So I’ve left it as is and I’ll leave it up to you to identify the culprit.
I’ve made up playlists of all 21 songs on each of the major music streaming platforms, for your listening and dancing pleasure. Please scroll to the bottom of page for links.
Or better still, buy the book!
Enjoy responsibly………
BC November 2026
‘Chapter and Verse’ - The Life’s A Gamble Playlists: Apple Music Spotify Amazon Tidal
