Clearly Quite Absurd is a very quiet piece from the Deep Purple album Rapture of the Deep. Its concept is simple. Life would be much simpler if we could clear away all the clutter and subterfuge and just read each other’s minds. There’s some lines in there that hit home …

Around the time of the second Iraq War, I started jamming on a Sunday afternoon with a local Ararat musician, Darren Sherwell. It started out as a bit of fun. He was an accomplished player and excellent singer. My fingers were full of rust – but somehow,in those first fumbling …