This chapter from "Pam Burridge," a 1992 biography by sports historian and academic Marian Stell, takes place in 1984. Although still just 18, Pam had been surfing in professional events for three years and had been touted as a future world champion since middle school. Her world title bid the previous year was abruptly halted when the last two contests were dropped from the schedule due to a lack of event sponsorship. Pam had been fast moving up the ratings at the time but had to settle for second runner-up in 1983. The text below has been slightly edited.

Pam’s financial position was becoming desperate. Assessing the coming season’s commitments, she doubted that prizemoney and her existing sponsorships could support her on another world tour. Financial help from her family was stretched to the limit in 1984. Her sister Donella won the solo Australian synchronized swimming title for the tenth year in succession and was selected to compete at the upcoming Los Angeles Olympic Games, where synchronized swimming was making its debut as a demonstration sport.

For the first time, it looked as if Pam might not be able to contest the world title. A newspaper article picked up her story and alerted the corporate world to her plight. But her financial rescue didn’t come from surfing quarters. The Australian clothing company Smiths Jeans recognized her potential for promoting their product to a wide-ranging audience. They approached Pam to use her in their series of advertisements. The magazine ads featured Pam hanging out at assorted bars with a range of non-surfing contemporaries. All featured the lines, ‘Pam Burridge goes to town in Smiths Jeans’ and ‘A girl’s gotta get out of the water sometimes.' An ironic line considering she needed to get out of the water to be able to afford to get back in it.

It had been quite a while since Pam had had a major sponsor. At eighteen she was self-conscious and critical of the direction of the ads, even though they had rescued her financially. ‘In my opinion, the ads didn’t work really. I didn’t like the image that was coming out, but I didn’t know what to do about it. My hair was all curled and I never have it curled. There were a few things that I felt a little bit embarrassed to tell them. At that stage I’d become quite awkward, I was probably a little more overweight than I wanted to be, I was kind of gawky and didn’t know how to say “this is what we need to do here guys”, I just did it and hoped for the best. That comes through when I look at the ads. I think that’s why it didn’t go any further. [The ad campaign] didn’t have any real direction and it didn’t look good enough, didn’t look powerful enough. But Smiths came to the rescue right when I needed it. If they hadn’t picked me up at that time I probably wouldn’t have been able to go on the next leg of the tour which may have meant dropping out of the ratings.’

Pam was also willing to try some novel ways of gaining sponsorship. She spent her non-surfing leisure time at clubs and bars in the city with her friends. These included a wide variety of artists, writers and musicians. She was involved in a relationship with the musician Damien Lovelock of the Celibate Rifles, an alternative band, and about as far from the surfing world as one could get. Lovelock suggested approaching a record company for sponsorship. His idea was to feature Pam in a band of her own, record a single with a video clip, and thus give her more exposure.

Lovelock's instincts were correct. The media loved it.

‘It was an image thing,' Pam recalled. 'it was a media gimmick. I was involved with Damien Lovelock who was into rock and roll—that was his life. It all came about really early in our relationship. I didn’t really have a lot of input into it. But I liked the fact that it was different, and I’d been spending a lot of time listening to music and going to see bands so I was quite envious of people who had that lifestyle. I was very anti-surfing at that stage of my life. I didn’t want to be called a surfer. So we did a single, even though I’d never sung before and I’m not a very good singer.

Lovelock penned a tongue-in-cheek critique of the surfing lifestyle, with creative input from Pam. They called the song 'Summertime All 'Round the World.' Pam liked the fact that it gently sent up the surfing scene:

It’s summertime all ’round the world
Hangin’ five, shootin’ the curl
On surfari, that’s for me
In my hotel room with my color TV

Life in the city, a double drag
Bought me a ticket, packed my bag
Out of the rat-race, cut of reach
Seven days and nights at Kuta Beach
On the beach

Surfin’ is the life, the only one for me
Havin’ fun In the sun, hangin’ out in the deep blue sea

Surfer girls, they look so fine
Sit on the beach most of the time
Watchin’ while the boys go in
As they get cancer of the skin

Can’t go surfin’ some of the time
Slick in the water, such a crime
Is it sewerage all over me?
Or Radioactivity?

The musicians assembled for the Pam and the Pashions track were all experienced and included Laughing Clowns saxophonist Louise Elliot and former Saints guitarist Bruce Calloway. The video to accompany the one-off single was financed by Smiths Jeans and shot by Kier McFarlane, who later worked with Sheryl Crow and Janet Jackson, among others. ‘Smiths Jeans paid it,' Pam recalled. 'I don’t think they liked that but they paid for it and there were a few shots of me walking along in the jeans. We did it cheap. It was done in North Steyne Surf Club and some of it at Maroubra. Kier McFarlane was great, he did wonders on such a small budget really, it’s a good look.’

The "Summertime" cover and all the promotion material featured Pam in her Rip Curl Dawn Patrol wet suit covered in diamonds. For her it was a sophisticated look and the first time she had control over the image that went out to the public, ‘I thought it was exploiting it wonderfully, I thought it was really poking its tongue out at surfing. And the song, the lyrics, are basically full of really derogatory things about surfers.’

The media took it like bait. The amount of publicity Pam received in both Australia and America was astonishing. As well as news items in the so-called straight press, she featured in 

 Magazine what else is there?') Waves magazine dubbed her the Malibu Madonna. 

 sent a photographer for a full-page spread on the ‘surfer turned rock star.’

Pam's venture into the music world, while firmly tongue-in-cheek, was treated with the utmost respect. 

predicted the song would be a hit. A Sydney newspaper claimed that Pam's singing ‘comes across as natural as her flowing blonde hair.’ Another thought she could be the new Little Pattie strutting her stuff on the Maroubra Surf Club stage like the original.

The record was released across Australia in September 1984 on an independent label called Hot Records. The fact that only about 500 copies were ever pressed was never allowed to get in the way of a good story. Nor was Pam ever tempted to perform. 'I knew nothing about music, I was just a music fan. Somebody gave me an opportunity to make some vinyl and I said yeah, I want to do it.’

But she did learn one lesson — the power of media. Compared with the small amount of time she and Lovelock put into organizing and recording the song, the return was astounding. ‘I’m still talking about it to this day. In America, especially, they really latched onto it. People would ask me “Have you still got that band?” and I’d think “What? If you only knew.” I did it because I was nineteen and I was looking for something new. It was something that happened and that’s all. It was fun.’

Serious or not, the Pam & the Pashions venture did have a significant impact on her career. Pam had always been the highest profile female Australian surfer. She had stolen the limelight from her local co-surfers Toni Sawyer, Sharon Holland and Pru Howarth, and from visiting international surfers. Just as a new generation of Australian pros were starting to receive their own (well deserved) publicity, Pam’s move into the music world consciously or subconsciously ensured that a significant proportion of the press concentrated their attentions on Pam Burridge and not Jodie Cooper or up-and-coming world amateur champion Jenny Gill.

In return, the press exacted their own price — if Pam was going to be the media favorite she needed to win the world title, and soon.

The record and the surrounding hype also took its toll on Pam's relationship with Damien Lovelock. She was trying to stop drinking and was ‘in the process of trying to get my act together. I was trying not to party. I was still going to bars but I wasn’t as involved so I felt like a bit of a spectator for the first time. Making the record was fun but I didn’t put a lot into it. [Damien] probably resented that I didn’t do more to help. But I didn’t know how to do it. I was very much a victim being rescued at that point and I think that was why we got on so well: he needed rescuing at the same time I needed rescuing. It was good for a while. It was really different.’

"PAM AND THE PASHIONS," EXCERPT FROM PAM BURRIDGE BIOGRAPHY (1992)

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