Graham Reid | | <1 min read
The idiosyncratic Peter Cape (1926-79) has appeared at Elsewhere's From the Vaults previously, with his Kiwi vernacular classic She'll Be Right (here).
He wrote about things that ordinary jokers and sheilas could understand and were interested in: rural life, the All Blacks, the train on the Main Trunk Line (and the food), trams, beer and betting on the horses, small towns and so on.
It needs to be noted however that the voice he used was affected. He had a BA (papers in English, philosophy and psychology), was ordained as an Anglican priest and produced radio programmes.
But he also could sniff out what those ordinary jokers were thinking -- as in this song where he observe the rise of coffee shops in the late Fifties (yes, espresso machines were in the main centres and some small towns decades before the curent swish cafe set might like to believe) and how that affected the bloke waiting for his sheila.
All that coffee he drinks takes hold towards the end.
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