Some of you will remember the 1999 “Sunscreen Song” released by Baz Luhrmann, officially entitled “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”.
For those of you that don’t remember, Luhrmann was the director of the 1996 film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, Pete Postlethwaite, Harold Perrineau Jr (Michael from Lost), and an impressive supporting & cameo cast.
The lyrics for the song came from an essay entitled “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young” by Mary Schmich, and published in June 1997 in Schmich’s Chicago Tribune column. The music was taken from a track on Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet soundtrack, using Quindon Tarver’s version of “Everybody’s Free”. Tarver also recorded a version of Prince’s “When Doves Cry”.
The Song
Here’s the song all the fuss is about. It’s good to listen to the words, or better still watch the video, follow the pictures, then have a read over the lyrics below and properly digest them.
This song was the key factor to me first becoming interested and consciously aware of positive thinking and the benfits of a good mental approach.
Lyrics to the essay/song
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’99: Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you can imagine.
Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind side you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t know.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And then you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look like 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more that it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
And here’s Mary Schmich’s Chicago Tribune column that started it all: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column,0,4054576.column
Quite a powerful and profound item, and I feel it’s still as important today as it was in 1997. What are your thoughts?
