Yesterday, I acquired a Spotify account. Considering it’s been around for 10 years, I’ve taken my sweet time adopting this technology. Music is an instrumental (pun intended) part of my life but I tend to stick with radio — Triple J — or my iTunes playlists. Today I listened to one of the “made for you” playlists and felt like I was listening to the radio but with ads. I’m not sure I’m a fan…yet.

The feature I’m most curious about is its ability to predict my taste and introduce me to artists I may not have discovered. The playlist today didn’t deviate from the artists I selected during the set up process but it was a good mix. At one point, a current fave came on.

Amy Shark’s ‘I Said Hi’ is about waking up and fighting for your dreams, no matter what. It’s also a cheeky snark about the music industry executives who rejected her for a decade.

Lying on my side, watching time fly by
And I bet the whole world thought that I would give up today

In an interview she explains that she had friends and family that were like “Oh, are you still doing your music. Come on Amy, get a real job.” So it’s a real passive aggressive song, like “oh, tell them I said hi.”

“I started saying that all the time. My manager would say ‘I’ve got a meeting with such and such today’ and it would be someone who was a dick to me, or whatever, and I’d say ‘tell them I said hi.'”

And yet, it’s this attitude that makes the song a success. Because haven’t we all wanted to say “I told you so” when we achieve something that everyone around us said we wouldn’t, or worse, actively discouraged us from?

My Year 11 chemistry teacher suggested I not continue with the subject for my senior year of high school. At the time, I took his advice. Ten years later, I became an industrial chemist; an internationally published and awarded expert in my niche field. Tell Mr Farquharson I said hi.

Who do you need to say hi to?