1. |
pink turban
05:19
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There you were pink turban in your hair
Laughing in Irish arms carving up the air
I was ¾ full and without a care
Who can say what made me look your way
Or how we knew exactly what to say
And who could know we’d be standing here today?
Now we’ve said “I do” and I will and I won’t say no
You know I love you want to hold you and not let go
Waiting at the station for the early Gippsland train
Through the window I waited for the smoke stacks stain
Then I’d see you waving kids called my name
Such sadness brought you across the sea
I bore witness to the power of family
And still somehow there was room enough for me
It’s times such as these you find if you’ll stand or fall
For love I bit my tongue and slept with billiard balls
From the Westgate bridge the power station glows
Down in Farm St the Friday wine club flowed
The four of us Shane McGowan and Lenny Cohen
In Mazza’s yard the garden fills with blooms
Up the country we yarn in wood fired rooms
In steaming hotels our theories bump and fume
It’s strikes me now and then about the way love grows
And how it’s fed by the love of friends we know
You know my darkness you’ve seen me break and cry
Lost and yearning alone beneath the sky
You sometimes call this stupid I guess that’s no lie
I’ve seen your weakness I’ve seen your doubts run wild
I’ve stood back gasping at your anger and your guile
I sometimes think I’ll give an inch and then you take a mile
This is no fairy tale we’re no fresh-faced teens
But with you I still find the wonder to believe
Sometimes I’m talking when I stop and realise
I’m not quite certain if the story’s yours or mine
Just where we start and end is no clear cut line
Now here we are and though it feels kind of strange
There’s no one else with whom I’d choose to play this game
I feel your eyes upon me I hear you speak my name
Now we’ve said I do and I will and I won’t say no
You know I love you want to hold you and not let go
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2. |
my mothers eyes
03:59
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I see myself disappearing from my mother’s eyes
Even though I’m sitting right here, I see I slip from her mind
She says, 'And where have you come from today?
And say hello to your ma
I don't get out much now, they don't let me go far.'
She stares at the paper each day she reads every word
They sit neat and true on the page, but meanings fly off like birds
Oh today's all a muddle she says
I just need time to get clear
She's always only just moved in never sure she'll stay here
In the end is a life just a busted old box tied with string?
Leaking old faded photos and all the songs we will no longer sing
I ring just to say I'll be down, she says, 'I'll make sure that I'm here'
She's always in the same room we sit in the same chairs
'What a lovely surprise', she says
'It's been such a long while
No-one seems to call now I guess they've not got the time'
I've learned to stop asking questions They only cause her despair
She's got a collection of favourite phrases She discovers then sets free in the air
'What a beautiful day' she says
'Oh those houses are new
Everything's for the best Remind me whose boy are you?'
I get up to leave and feel her puzzled eyes follow me home
Too soon we are turning away And too soon all alone
'What a lovely surprise she says What a beautiful day
We've all been so lucky The good have their day'
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3. |
all the dead soldiers
03:54
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All the dead soldiers
The young men are lined up in their neat endless rows
The dull earth hides the fact of their unruly bones
Commandeered and assembled into neat, covered piles
For politicians to publicly reconcile
In neat lined pages they count the recovered
To assemble neat meaning for all the fathers and mothers
And the mighty mark their conquests by inches and dreams
A dead man’s only a loss when his mangled body can be seen
And the young men who crowded the bars with their dreams
Could not imagine their parents tears falling in streams
All the working class Johnnys and all the peasant Mehmets
Are now all just the same in the ground where they met
Their dreams sunk in the mud of some absent mens' vision
All youthful joy buried under the weight of their new wisdom
And there're are no cameras to capture the smashed empty bottles
The screams in the night or the broken man's shuffle
In the halls, in the squares, in the newspaper pages
In stiff, formal letters they're still called up and paraded
Still serving the cause, all of their differences faded
Bloodless and wordless with others icons they're laden
And the mighty mark their conquests by inches and dreams
A dead man’s only a loss when his mangled body can be seen
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4. |
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The grape harvest’s over I've got no plans to be sober
Until my pockets stop sagging with the pittance I've saved
One last drink with Frankie and one last kiss from Mona
Then farewell to Mildura and the few friends I've made
Then it's into the car riding high in the saddle
I'm chasing bad money and making no plans
Sometimes it seems I've been alone since the cradle
Then the road opens up like a welcoming hand
Then I load up the wagon with the dog and some flagons
My backseat come bedroom is full of old dreams
And it's southward we'll travel coughing red dust and gravel
Held together with wire and feeling strained at my seams
When I'm in this old car I feel like one of the cowboys
Out riding the ranges in the night all alone
Taking my chances with no backward glances
Following nobody's rules but my own
I've got just enough money to get to Moloney's
Where the sea wind spits ice through the holes in my clothes
Near the old dead volcano I'll dig the potatoes
The deep mud has fingers that clutch weary bones
Sometimes I stop and I stare at the night sky
Just me and the kelpie and the cold distant stars
And sometimes it seems like it's all just an alibi
Stopping me thinking and feeling too hard
Then it's into the car riding high in the saddle
I'm chasing bad money and making no plans
Sometimes it seems I've been alone since the cradle
Then the road opens up like a welcoming hand
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5. |
broken glass
04:08
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The water’s rising quickly up the shore
The locals give up ground there is no time to mourn
With dreams of high, dry fenced in suburbs, the village is forlorn
Nervous eyes traverse the sky for that final storm
Here the clouds are high and they quickly pass
The earth’s as hard and cruel as broken glass
There were always some who said the good times could not last
We were too busy being free to see they might end so fast
The sky's on fire
The water's high
I love you baby
But my heart is dry
Empty streets and abandoned cars
The taps are dry in abandoned bars
The cities move on but they leave their ghostly scars
Those who stay too late to change stare out on empty yards
The pleasures we once found in all the things we owned
Are dry and empty now as old dead bones
How we gorged, but never full, we stood so all alone
To watch as all we had ignored tore down our homes
The sky's on fire
The water's high
I love you baby
But my heart is dry
The pyramids with their crumbling walls
The Roman ruins that once stood so tall
How their certainty once held us in their thrall
And the citadels that now cast their spell they will too crack and fall
The sky's on fire
The water's high
I love you baby
But my heart is dry
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6. |
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I had a cardboard suitcase from Carlton United
I had on my walking shoes
The sign up ahead said buddy it is time to choose
I remembered reading something about the path less chosen
The romance of the open road
If I’d had that book of poems, I'd've wrapped it round my shaking bones
In another ten miles I was just ten miles closer to some place I never got to know
Still searching in the distance for some place that I might call my own
My eyes were getting raw with the wind that was blowing
I itched inside my travelling clothes
The cigarette I was smoking had me barking like the circling crows
I remembered hearing someone praise the far horizons
The mysteries in the desert skies
Well if there’s a new age coming, no-one told those fucking flies
I was sitting half pissed in the Dingo café, There were straps of plastic in the door
I had a funny feeling it was something from a film I saw
...
I was never quite certain if I was seeking answers Or stuck inside some strangers dream
Moving through the shadows, ghost like on some TV screen
My thumb was getting wet as it hung there waving
I cursed each passing empty car
When I heard the squeal of air brakes, I was dripping on the wet black tar
The big rig’s tape deck had on Elvis Presley
The driver smoothed his pompadour
I’d never been so happy to be welcomed to Deer Park before
The city was like a smile full of broken teeth, Rain clouds hung in dirty sky
Melbourne ain’t nirvana, but I thought I’d give it one more try
Yeah Melbourne ain't nirvana but I thought I'd give it one more try
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7. |
brown river
03:53
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Brown River gonna be my home
I'm weighted down with wax and chrome
Brown River gonna be my home
Hey builder you can have my bones
Keep them til they turn to stone
Builder you can have my bones
Hey farmer you can have my brain
Mush it up to help grow your grain
Farmer you can have my brain
Doctor you can have my heart
Wash it out and make it start
Doctor you can have my heart
Sweet Jesus you can have my soul
If you don't claim it then my devils will
Sweet Jesus you can have my soul
Lover you could have had my all
You went and made me feel so small
Lover you could have had my all
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8. |
pills and whiskey
02:59
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Pills and whiskey
Are all that keep me
From jumpin' into the river
Pills and whiskey
Are all that can save me
From sayin goodbye forever
Oh the world is a sad sorry mess any sane man would leave
If I'm a sad sorry mess too I just might survive
When greed has corrupted every decent thing left to believe
It's only pills and whiskey that can keep decent people alive
Pills and whiskey
Are all that keep me
From jumpin' into the river
Pills and whiskey
Are all that can save me
From sayin goodbye forever
If you're not making money you can't get your name on the door
Don't bother waiting for someone to welcome you in
Just walk away whistling doing your best to ignore
And wait for the cure of the whiskey and pills to kick in
Some people say I've given up
That I bite the hand from which I sup
But I'm not saying my way's right
It's just the only way I know how to fight
I gotta turn and walk away
Give'em two fingers and be on my way
Pills and whiskey
Are all that keep me
From jumpin' into the river
Pills and whiskey
Are all that can save me
From sayin goodbye forever
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Bob Keith Melbourne, Australia
Bob Keith is a Melbourne based songwriter with one foot still in the country
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