The first time was purely accidental. It was the early 70s. All 'i' inventions - such as the iPod and the internet - were still fanciful notions, decades away.

The only 'I' around then - as it is now - was the egotistical pronoun (first person, singular), as in "I own a Beatles album. Do you?" Today, of course, it is, "I drive a Ferrari."

The "Do you?" bit has been edited out but replaced instead by a cocked eyebrow that resembles, in any case, a silent question mark.

In 70s India you either listened to the radio or bought little or large black discs that spun dizzyingly on turntables and were - like guns - referred to by numbers: 45s or 33s. It was safe if you owned 45s and 33s.

If someone said he had a 22, you walked past his house with swift, lengthy strides, even if it was only an "air thing" meant for the birds. Young women were called birds then and have evolved - slightly - into chicks today, and hens when the odd case of negativity kicks in.

Thus it was, in those heady 70s days that he became, totally by chance, a spinner of musical myths, inventing stories about the origin of songs and songwriters that everybody gathered around bought into as though they were reading the popular magazine Record Mirror itself.

It was John Fogerty, of the band Creedence Clearwater Revival that triggered the aforementioned accident. Fogerty's accent - to Anglo-Indian ears at least - was only semi-comprehensible. Which explains why young Rosemary J. couldn't get her head around the opening lyrics to the song Good Golly Miss Molly.

"What does he mean?" she asked the soon-to-be inventor of musical fables one sunny day when the pristine air was right for inventing, "Good golly Miss Molly/You're so like a ball. What's that all about?" His straight-faced reply: "That song, Rosemary, was written as an ad to fight obesity."

The song promptly lost favour with the rotund Rosemary J. But this "accidental" inventive explanation put the young fabulist on a roll. Rock and roll, so to speak.

"Fogerty, though American," he told an enthralled audience another time, "wasn't a monarchist and so actually wrote Who'll stop the reign with British sentiment in mind, because his records were selling in large numbers in Britain. But political pressure from the White House was so great he changed 'reign' to 'rain' and said the song was about the bombing in Vietnam."

As the years went by and the songs got a bit more risqué, so did his inventiveness. Blondie's The tide is high/but I'm holding on/I'm gonna be your number one, he said, with conviction, was primarily written as a motivational chant for bladder control.

By the 80s and through the 90s, even the 2000s, any explanation he offered, musically, was viewed as irrefutable truth.

Some laughed incredulously, but believingly, when they first heard of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's final encounter at No 10, as Blair passed the baton to Brown and made for the door, his final departure. Brown is said to have wailed, "You've left me an economy in ruins, Tony."

Blair is said to have wheeled around and replied, with customary alacrity, "I beg your pardon/I didn't promise you a rose, Gordon!" And now, as the American presidential election draws nigh, he has the sequel, waiting.

Obama or McCain is going to let out the same wail, bemoaning the crumbling economy and George W., in his Texan-accent, swivelling for the last few times in his Oval Office leather chair, is going to reply, "I could never have promised you a rose garden, buddy. I'm just a second-generation bush, after all!"

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney.