1993: Hit the Ground Running

October 16, 2023

By AHNZ

Tim Finn’s single Hit The Ground Running is now 30 year old. Released in October 1993, it was one of the top tracks (along with Persuasion) from his solo album Before & After.

Finn’s professional success was peaking in 1993 with an OBE in June and the release of Before & After in July. He had an album deal with Capitol records and got paid to stride about New York City being filmed singing about New York City for a music video that would be internationally released. That’s a reasonable definition of success for a music artist and a long way up for a kid from Te Kuiti or even Split Enz.

Finn had been a temporary member of Crowded House until November 1991 but exited. His deliberate, pre-meditated energy was a clash with the band’s casual, informal, spontaneous stage  repartee. Ref. Wiki

I don’t hear Hit the Ground Running on the radio anymore but in the 2020s it seems uncannily prescient with the COVID Crisis in mind…

“A deadly virus, so few survivors
Creeps up quickly and leaves you darkly
But where’s my brother?
When you’re standing shoulder to shoulder
Fear and anger make you bolder, yeah, yeah
I can more or less continue my life
I can give in or I can try
Hit the ground running
Hit the ground running for your life”

Whatever Finn was thinking and feeling for his song shares a common root with the rejection and fear experienced by New Zealanders who did not obey the COVID Mandates of Labour 6.0. It maps on so well that marking the 30th year of the song may as well look at the sentiments with the following hindsight.

Deadly virus, so few survivors– Contrary to propaganda, COVID turned out to  a panic and no more deadly than the usual seasonal flu; Everyone survived! The real ‘virus’ was a quick/rapid infection of propaganda and only few survived that; All left darkly.

But where’s my brother? Kiwis who shared social and professional lives, were families and friends, were split apart between the skeptical and the obedient. The false assumption that we were united and free, brothers, was shattered. It was presided over by our Director of Health Ashley Bloomfield here but in America by the thickly New York accented Anthony Fauci; Same city as Finn’s video.

When you’re standing shoulder to shoulder, Fear and anger make you bolder. New Zealanders protesting Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s pretentious Martial Law came together shoulder-to-shoulder in a convoy and a camp. They took very bold moves, occupying parliament grounds and creating a platform for a new, authentic, direction for our country. Ardern’s Government called them a “river of filth” and boldly, violently, suppressed their former ‘brothers’ with a massive police operation.

I can more or less continue my life, I can give in or I can try. So many of the outcast Kiwis had to face this choice to give up on life or try to continue it on different terms. We had been fired from our jobs and schools. Entire career paths derailed. Industries sacrificed. Health and treatment plans abandoned or postponed leading directly to hastened injury and death. Even after the way opens up again we cannot forget the former friends and colleagues who reveled themselves as willing to close them  in our faces. We cannot go back to them without rejecting ourselves and our lived experience; The very thing we refused to do during the Crisis. We cannot trust them to have power over us ever again. It’s hard to go back to workplaces or social clubs or even supermarkets and shops that turned on us because the Government told them to. Depression is on offer. Or, you can more or less continue your life but not the way it was.

Hit the ground running. Hit the ground running for your life.

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