Around the time I settled on naming my solo project Pat’s Alternative Bus Tour, I searched online to see if the name, or at least a similar one, was already being used.
Among the search results was a link to Pat’s Uninteresting Tours, which was a city tour operating in Sydney in the mid to late 1980s, offering tourists the chance to explore some of the more mundane attractions of the city.
The parallels between the two Pat’s tours are striking. I even came up with the name Pat’s Alternative Bus Tour based on a similar idea I once had about a taking a tour of Glasgow’s less ‘touristy’ sites. So when I was trying to think of an idea for lyrics to a new song I was writing, Pat’s Uninteresting Tours seemed like the perfect match.
Most of the references to locations in Sydney in the song are faithful to the real tour. However, the Light Horse Interchange line is historically inaccurate as this bit of road was built in the early 2000s. In the end, the line just sounded too good to leave out.
The song, which you can listen to via the soundcloud link provided, is track four on my second album, World to Rights, released digitally on the 1st March 2025.
By the way, if you want a video for the song you could try turning the sound off on the video and starting both the song and the video at the same time. DIY at its finest!