The Final Countdown – Europe

The first record I ever got.
It was 2006, I was 16 and going on my first road trip with my dad in my recently purchased 1972 falcon, where I was at the wheel with my Learner plates on, leaning to drive. The whole road trip we were laughing and playing the song ‘the final count down’ by Europe, which for one reason or another we found hilarious at the time. Towards the end of the trip we stopped at Rutherglen. Dad and I both raided a local op shop and met up at the end to see what goodies we had got. I picked up a book, but dad said ‘close your eyes, you won’t believe this’ and so I did… and as he told me to open them, there was ‘the final count down’ on a 7″ record in his hands. We both laughed our heads off at the odds of the find considering the absurd amount of time we had spent listening to it on our trip! We laughed at packed it away into tie car and made our way home.
When We eventually got back from home and unpacked, the record was nowhere to be found. Neither of us could remember where it was put, and so it was forgotten about. I started collecting more and more records from that point on, but was always sad we lost that first record.
Fast forward 10 years and Dad and I have decided to restore my falcons interior, which meant pulling apart everything from front to back. Seats, carpet, everything. I was going through and clearing out the boot and i saw a Melways wedged in behind the back seat and boot area… thinking it was just junk, I pulled it out but felt there was something rigid inside, and so I opened it up, and there… sitting safely between the pages… in all its glory… was the Final countdown record we had purchased all those years ago. We couldn’t believe it. It brought back so many funny memories of that trip, and how it started a passion of collecting records. The above picture is of that very record sitting on my now-restored 1972 falcon that we drove on our trip. One of the best memories we have and it only took 10 years and a running joke to make!