Every year, Shihad\u2019s 1997 single \u2018Home Again\u2019 helps countless New Zealanders remember how daylight saving works.<\/p>\n
This story was first published in 2017 and reshared pretty much every year since.<\/p>\n
Jon Toogood was 24 years old when he wrote one of the great New Zealand song lyrics.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut your clock back for the winter\u201d is the opening line of \u2018Home Again\u2019, the first track on Shihad\u2019s 1996 self-titled album. In just seven words it evokes an acute, crushing sense of ennui which instantly sets the tone for the song\u2019s themes of distance and separation. It is a huge part of what makes the song one of our most enduring homesickness anthems.<\/p>\n
It is also probably the most helpful rock song ever written in this country \u2013 a failsafe mnemonic for remembering how daylight saving works. For years, many New Zealanders and even some Australians have used what is known as the \u201cShihad Method\u201d when resetting their clocks and watches. One subscriber to the method described it to The Spinoff as \u201cbloody useful\u201d.<\/p>\n
Shockingly, this famous line almost didn\u2019t make it onto the record.<\/p>\n
Toogood\u2019s old notebook, displayed at Auckland Museum as part of 2017\u2019s \u2018Volume: Making Music in Aotearoa\u2019 exhibition, shows the first draft of the song\u2019s lyrics had a completely different opening line \u2013 one almost identical to a line from the Beatles\u2019 \u2018Here Comes the Sun\u2019 \u2013 which was later crossed out and replaced: \u201cIt\u2019s one long, cold, lonely winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jon Toogood\u2019s handwritten \u2018Home Again\u2019 lyrics<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d been living in LA for ages, writing and touring living apart from friends and family and more specifically my partner at that time,\u201d Toogood told The Spinoff. \u201cI think that opening line came from the million and one phone calls between her and myself \u2013 it just stuck out to me that I was living in a completely different world where everything was opposite to where she was including something as fundamental as the seasons. I just thought that line helped illustrate that idea, more for myself than anyone else really.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the song\u2019s genesis is in Los Angeles, the lyrics to \u2018Home Again\u2019 were written at Auckland\u2019s York Street Studios in June 1996. The whole song took just 20 minutes to write. \u201cI had thoughts about what I wanted to sing about, but I didn\u2019t articulate them until I was forced to,\u201d Toogood told Rip It Up in 2010. \u201cI left it until the last minute, which is what I do with every important moment in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
It remains unknown exactly how last-minute the inclusion of \u201cPut your clock back for the winter\u201d was, but it was undoubtedly an important moment. \u201cHe basically crossed out a shit opening line and replaced it with a great one,\u201d explains rock critic Russell Brown.<\/p>\n
Songwriting expert Mike Chunn agrees. \u201cIt\u2019s crucial to have the listener wanting to know more, to have their curiosity piqued,\u201d he says of the importance of the opening line. \u201c\u2018Home Again\u2019 does just that \u2013 we want to know more, and as the song evolves we are riveted and stay with it. That\u2019s very hard to do well\u2026\u00a0 Jon does it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although it only reached number 42 on the singles chart when released in 1997, \u2018Home Again\u2019 went on to become one of Shihad\u2019s best-known songs \u2013 a beloved, and very helpful, entry in the canon of New Zealand popular music.<\/p>\n
Daylight Saving ends on the first Sunday in April \u2013 unofficially known as Shihad Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every year, Shihad\u2019s 1997 single \u2018Home Again\u2019 helps countless New Zealanders remember how daylight saving works. This story…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[77206,157,111,43,139,69,1066,191144],"class_list":{"0":"post-363395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-daylight-saving","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-pop-culture","15":"tag-shihad"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}