Baz Luhrmann Sunscreen Song

I post this in the Category: Camping Safety because it’s about sunscreen and you know how important that is when you go camping.

On June 1, 1997, a young journalist, Mary Schmich, wrote a column in the Chicago Tribune titled “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young”. She introduced the column as the commencement address she would give if she were asked to give one.

Her essay became famous world-wide when Baz Luhrmann – director of “Romeo & Juliet”) turned it into a #1 music single as “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen”. You may even have heard the song and laughed at its litany of humorous but practical advice. Excerpt below:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97

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 proven 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 have faded.
…
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
…


Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
…
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…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
…
Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy … But trust me on the sunscreen.

To view the original column written by Mary Schmidt as it appeared in the Chicago Tribute, click here. Better still, play the video above and listen to it.