Wear Sunscreen

Wear Sunscreen is the common name of an essay, (actually called "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young") written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997.

The most popular and well-known form of the essay is the successful music single released in 1999, accredited to Baz Luhrmann.

Mary Schmich's "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" was published in the Chicago Tribune as a column on June 1, 1997. In her introduction to the column, she described it as the commencement address she would give if she were asked to give one. When the column became the song, her wish came true as at Zagreb's Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing the song Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) is played on every graduation ceremony.

Soon it became the subject of an urban legend, according to which it was originally an MIT commencement speech given by author Kurt Vonnegut in the same year (which was false) and by the year of 1999 it was already widespread. But in fact, the commencement speaker at MIT that year was Kofi Annan.

The poem-like piece has drawn frequent comparison to the Max Ehrmann poem Desiderata, which was also the subject of an urban legend misattribution.

"Wear Sunscreen" was set to music, renamed "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" (aka "The Sunscreen Song") and released on an album by Australian film director Baz Luhrmann. The single was released by Luhrmann under the EMI Music Australia Pty. Ltd. label on the 1998 album Something for Everybody and on a 1999 single release.

Contrary to popular belief the essay is not read by Baz Luhrmann on the track; it is read by Australian voice actor Lee Perry. Quindon Tarver performs the lyrics on the chorus.

The song features a spoken-word track set over a mellow backing track. The song lyrics, which consist of a litany of humorous but practical advice, were drawn word for word from the Schmich column except for a date change from "'97" to "'99" - although an early version has been found with the original line of "Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97" still in place.

The supposed story behind the single was that Baz Luhrmann delivered a speech to a graduating class and it was thought that they were well spoken and sage enough to be played beyond those walls. When a radio station was propositioned to play the speech they turned it down saying that they only played songs with music behind them. The idea was put forward to accompany the words with music and once it began playing became more and more popular till it was officially released.

In the 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet directed by Luhrmann the melody of the backing track can be heard being sung by a choir.

In 1999 the song was a part of the end credits in John Swanbeck's movie The Big Kahuna, starring Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and Peter Facinelli.

The single's title appears to be based on the song "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" which was released in 1991 by Rozalla. What is more, portions of the lyrics of the Rozalla song can be found word by word in the Baz Luhrman song.

DM9 DDB - one of Brazil's biggest advertising agencies - uses the music as a new year's promotional video for their clients, by mixing it with video footage. The video was released only for their clients and was intended as an internal circulation but soon became viral and was to be found on every p2p network.

Rede Globo the biggest Brazilian media conglomerate made it into a 2003/2004 happy new year video featured in Fantástico with translated lyrics and their own footage.

A music clip using scenes from all Star Wars movies was presented as a video intro for the 2006 JediCon in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The video caught the attention of all who attended and received with a thunder of applauses. The footage was edited by fanclub members: Henrique Granado and Flauber.

The Baz Luhrmann song version inspired numerous parodies. John Safran released a song entitled "Not the Sunscreen Song". The musician and comedian Chris Rock enjoyed great success with his spoken word song "No Sex (In the Champagne Room)." Denis Leary performed a version called "Drink Beer". The song was also parodied in an episode of House of Mouse where Jimminy Cricket performed it. The comedy group Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie also made a parody entitled "The Sunscreen Marketing Board". There are also many fan-made parodies, including a Star Wars version featuring Yoda.