Baz storms the charts

Baz Luhrmann: Found the words to his hit in an e-mail

Film director Baz Luhrmann has shot straight to number one in this week's charts with the release of his Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) record.

Released last Monday, the song topped the chart after selling around a quarter of a million copies.

Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) is based on a legendary e-mail chain letter that was spammed around the world in 1997.

The original e-mail took the form a typical valedictory speech listing supposedly useful advice to young people.

Explaining its success, chart expert Simon Winter of the HMV chain said:"Everyone's going for it as a musical version of those self-help philosophies. It's not really going to change anybody's lives but it's certainly captured people's imaginations."

Indeed, the record has proved such stiff opposition that many other record companies have delayed the release of their big name singles until later in the summer.

Legend had it that the e-mail had been written by the US author Kurt Vonnegut.

Luhrmann, best known in the UK for directing the 1992 films Strictly Ballroom and the 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet, came across the e-mail after it was sent to a friend.

Sunscreen: "Simple words changing people's lives"

He soon discovered that Vonnegut was not the author of the speech, but that the words were in fact penned by Chicago Tribune journalist Mary Schmich.

Schmich had written the piece in the style of a college graduation speech for her newspaper column.

Luhrmann made a deal with the paper to use what has been dubbed the "sunscreen" speech in an album of prose and poetry set to music.

He employed Australian actor Lee Perry to voice the spoken word piece and backed it with a laid-back hip-hop soundtrack from the 1992 club anthem Everybody's Free (To Feel Good) by Rozalla.

Taking the credit for bringing the record into the limelight has also become a bit of battleground.

BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles has hailed the track as one of the records of the year.

London's Capital Radio has also claimed responsibility for popularising the song in the UK - and forcing EMI to release the single in the UK.

The track is taken from the album Something For Everybody

Tara Barun, spokeswoman for Capital Radio, said: "We started playing it very early on the Steve Penk show. We enjoyed it so much and so many people phoned us that Steve gave out EMI's number and said 'Don't phone us, phone EMI.' "

Deluged with calls, the EMI switchboard nearly keeled over and the company were forced to set up an answering service to deal with the fans.

"They're such simple words but they are changing so many people's lives. We've had people phone up just to say thank you for playing it because its made them feel good about themselves," said Barun.