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Mary Schmich

The Sunscreen Song

It’s amazing how you forget about songs, and then all of a sudden you trip over them when you least expect it.  That was definitely the case when I tripped over “The Sunscreen Song” last week in my RSS Reader – it was one of the big hits of 1997.  This is one of the songs that I remember having playing in the car while delivering pizzas, such a long time ago.  I would have bought it back then, but it was never released as a single despite the radio airplay it received.

sunscreen spf20

The backing music to “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)” can be heard in Baz Luhrmann’s “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet”.  The song takes the form of speech to graduates; a guide on how to get on in life.  The song is actually the work of Mary Schmich a journalist with the Chicago Tribune – the newspaper where the article originally appeared.

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…

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….  (Full Text at onemansblog [^])

It runs for around 7 minutes, but we think that it is worth checking out one of the videos on YouTube – The Sunscreen Song [^].

Sources: Wikipedia [^], onemansblog [^], Chicago Tribute [^].