By Michael Miner
Mary Schmich penned the words that now nourish a generation starved for wisdom. Her lyrics to “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)” sprang from her brow in the spring of 1997 as a lowly Tribune column. Somehow mislabeled an MIT graduation speech delivered by Kurt Vonnegut, the text hit the Internet and shot around the world. Authorship was eventually sorted out, People magazine called, and Schmich came into “my 15 minutes of fame,” plus something that to a columnist is even more precious–material for three more columns she could write off the top of her head.
Stampeded by incessant airplay in a burgeoning number of cities, the public poured into record stores that hadn’t stocked Luhrmann’s CD in months. By last week a new issue with a new cover boasting of “the speech song” was on the shelves. This week a program director in Austin, Texas, told Billboard, “It is the most requested song we’ve ever had, bar none.”
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After hearing “Sunscreen” once on the radio, my wife headed into a Virgin store in New York City two weeks ago hoping that by some miracle a clerk would know what she was talking about. The clerks not only identified the CD at once but filled her in on the Vonnegut-Schmich back story. They said the CD was flying out the door, and she saw for herself that it was.
“Which means she’s not getting rich,” says Eyre, beginning to perk up.
“None that I’m aware of,” she says. “That hadn’t even crossed my mind.”
