The Sunscreen Song: The class of '99

The Documentary Podcast

• Episode: The Sunscreen Song: The class of '99
• Website: The Documentary Podcast
• Feed URL: http://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0lx.rss
• Duration: 00:49:30
• Published: 2019-09-15 05:00

Twenty years ago the music track, Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) became a global hit. It featured a wise-sounding man giving a graduation-style speech addressed to the Class of ‘99, set to an uplifting backing track. It was the work of Australian filmdirector Baz Luhrmann, using music from his film Romeo and Juliet. But those facts do not tell the whole story. Far from it. In this programme Lee Perry (the wise-sounding man himself) tells the strange story of The Sunscreen Song; who really wrote the words, how Baz Luhrmann came to them – and why the song made such a deep and lasting impression on so many people.