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Sing a Song for Us Tonight is a segment where people choose a song that is special to them and explain why. Today’s guest is Rob and he’s chosen Psycho by the Beasts of Bourbon. Here’s his story, thanks Rob

Back in the early nineties we were kidding ourselves that we were all cool now the eighties were over. As a child that might as well have grown up behind the iron curtain as far as music was concerned I was unaware just how much good music had been produced in the eighties – and not all of it involved big hair.

I will always credit my mate Dan for suggesting we go and see the Beasts one Friday night. They were playing at Le Rox. A now long defunct Goth club we’d always referred to as the bushfire babies club. Because they all wore black. Damn we were funny.

‘Beasts of Bourbon? Aren’t they a Bette Midler cover band?’ I asked. Dan could only reply that he’d heard they were good. So He, Matt and I went, three - ultimately middle class but trying very hard to be working class - boys from the deep south out on the town. We paid an exorbitant fee, probably around $7, to get in which left me enough money for one stubbie of West End Export which I sipped slowly as we stood uncomfortably around waiting for them to come on.

It was worth the wait. They were bone jarringly good. There were maybe fifty people there and I was sober, but once they took the stage - Hell, once Tex took the stage - nothing else mattered. Nearly twenty years later I can still remember them grinding out the dark, bluesy pub rock of Black Milk, Driva Man, Place Called Bad and Psycho – songs I was hearing for the first time - to the small but enthusiastic crowd. I developed a massive man crush that night that I doubt will ever leave me.

Their CDs were the soundtrack to my late teens and early twenties. Unrequited love, highway driving, mining towns and the death of my mother all replay in my head to the licks of Spencer P Jones and Kym Salmon and the growl of Tex Perkins.

At some point I taped them on Rage. The song Psycho eventually wore out so many times did I stagger home and collapse on the couch playing, rewinding and replaying. I loved the part near the end where he shifts his head and the shadow momentarily slips from his eyes and I would implore anyone unfortunate enough to be with me to watch it over until they finally ‘got’ the Beasts. I don’t think I ever converted anyone.

I saw them again last year on their Little Animals tour. I was sober again as I no longer drink. The crowd was larger, and older, and the Beasts themselves certainly hadn’t got any prettier. Has a little self-parody crept into Tex’s onstage persona? Sadly I think so. But they still can make the rock and are a living time capsule of my life in the early nineties. (Rob)

If you’ve got a story about a song you’d like to share, even if you’ve done one before, please email me, thanks