Close my eyes, she's somehow closer now (Beach Boys)

1. The Exponents – Like She Said (1994)/ Nameless Girl (1992)
2. Blerta - Dance All Around The World (1972)/ Joy Joy (1972)
3. Dragon – Young Years (1989)/ Rain (1984)
4. John Hanlon - Higher Trails (1975)/ Wind Songs (1975)
5. Crowded House - Private Universe (1994)/ Weather With You (1991)

Fifth in the Wozza countdown of the 10 best Nu Zild bands and their two best songs is Crowded House - something of an inevitability (say it as Smith from the Matrix - it's good).


Nil Fun is surely a Beatles acolyte, like me. The difference between the two of us is that Neil is a genius writer, singer, musician and I am practicing five basic guitar chords, but that’s by the by.

A genius? You ask. Yes – a genius. He can churn out hummable instantly loveable chewns for fun, in his sleep, with his fretting hand tied behind his back.

Picking two great songs from Crowded House is a very tough job (unlike Berta, say, who only had two great songs to my mind).

I’ve stuck by Weather With You because I use that philosophy a lot in day to day life. It’s like Emerson’s great quote – Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. Neil’s version is even more succinct – you always take the weather with you.



And Private Universe edges out the more obvious pop songs (Don’t Dream It’s Over, Four Seasons In One Day, Distant Sun and loads of others) because it’s a proper mature Beatle song.





The lyric touches on the personal and the universal (private and universe). Neil evokes a Strawberry Fields style sepia coloured childhood domesticity in the song (in his own apple tree, dinner on the table, talking to birds) but he also touches on the cosmic quest for meaning - I have all I want, is that simple enough? A whole lot more I'm thinking of.

The music is otherworldly. There is longing and hope and there at the end are the Polynesian rhythms which take over from the drums. A magical aural experience in its own write (sic).

Macca would have been delighted if he’d written this song!