# Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen) whose talking it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 20, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybodys-free-to-wear-sunscreen-whose-talking-it/220200 "2003-12-20T19:17:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybodys-free-to-wear-sunscreen-whose-talking-it/220200/1 "2003-12-20T19:17:13Z")
The song is supposedly by Baz Luhrmann. Did he write it? That’s not him talking is it? Doesn’t he have a thick Australian accent? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybodys-free-to-wear-sunscreen-whose-talking-it/220200/2 "2003-12-20T19:19:54Z")
No, it’s some other guy. And the words are originally from a column by a Chicago-based writer who’s name I forget but it was NOT Kurt Vonnegut. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybodys-free-to-wear-sunscreen-whose-talking-it/220200/3 "2003-12-20T19:23:49Z")
Ah. From [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com): > [@](#): > > One of the most surreal singles in memory, “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” has an even stranger story than you’d imagine: in 1998, a student lifted the text of an article columnist Mary Schmich had written for the Chicago Tribune and started sending it around the world, crediting it as a commencement speech given at MIT by Kurt Vonnegut. Film director Baz Luhrmann (who had taken a big part in designing the soundscapes of his films Strictly Ballroom and William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet) got his hands on it just as he was working on a remix of Rozalla’s 1992 dance hit “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good).” Within a day, Luhrmann had hired a local actor to read the text, and a single was born. It’s a wonderfully surreal pop-cultural moment on an album that strives for such things. Luhrmann’s modus operandi involves the remixing and customizing of tracks until they have a fabulous sheen, and it owes a lot to the equally media-attuned Malcolm McLaren (and especially to McLaren’s 1989 album Waltz Darling). Though he throws in a handful of time-tested songs (Doris Day’s “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps,” La Bohème’s “Che Gelide Manina”), Something for Everybody is very much of a specific moment–and though the moment may pass, fans will enjoy revisiting it time and again. --Randy Silver And the actor is credited as Quindon Tarver ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybodys-free-to-wear-sunscreen-whose-talking-it/220200/4 "2003-12-20T19:28:59Z")
Why thank you **Mr. Chance**. Do you by chance have the scoop on the young boy who sounds like a grown woman that sings the chorus?