Another Year

Lets flip the country
This one will never be what we desire,
It's got the kind of heart that we despise
Honestly

The Middle Ages Won't Go Away

And then those questions come up

Like was the Constitution written in invisible ink?

Has everybody here forgotten how to think?

Is this great big boat starting to sink?

And you thought there were things that had disappeared forever

Things from the Middle Ages

Beheadings and hangings and people in cages

And suddenly they were everywhere

And suddenly they're alright

Welcome to, welcome to, welcome to the American night

Then We Started All Over Again

When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over

Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son
It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers
We sailed off to Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter

Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well
He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia

But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

Now those that were left, well we tried to survive
In a mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
But around me the corpses piled higher

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
Never knew there were worse things than dying

For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then turned all their faces away

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory

And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?

 — Eric Bogle 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'

Mixed Marriages

We walked out — tentacle in hand
you could sense that the earthlings would not understand
they'd go … nudge nudge … when we got off the bus
saying "it's extra-terrestial — not like us"
— John Cooper Clarke 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space'

The Companionship Of The Herd

A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.
 — Nicholas Boileau

Dimensions

A thing is a phallic symbol if it's longer than it's wide
 — Melanie Safka 'Psychotherapy'

We

It is in love that we are made;
In love we disappear.

 — Leonard Cohen

Mum

I see your picture

as though it were a mirror 

but there's no part of you 

outside the frame 

except the change that you gave to me: 

this will never come again. 

You are gone 

and I am with you: 

this will never come again.

 — Peter Hammill 'Again'

Look at the sky, but it's empty now; 

look at the sea, it holds nothing but despair. 

I raise my eyes, but my head stays bowed... 

I look to my side, but you're not there. 

And I can't get you out of my mind, 

no, no, no, no, I just can't get you from my mind.

 — Peter Hammill 'The Shingle Song'


I can't get used to living here,
While my heart is broke, my tears I cried for you.
But all I got is a photograph
And I realise you're not coming back anymore.
 — Richard Starkey 'Photograph'

Idiot Grin

behind the smirk of the macho man 

is the quivering lip of the little boy.

 — Peter Hammill

No Matter What

You know Tom Paine wrote the first best-seller at a dark time in the Revolution when we were losing and all the soldiers were deserting. Giving up. And the book was called Common Sense and it was really just a long list of questions. And one of the questions was: Does it make common sense for an island to rule a continent? And everybody kind of went hmmm and they signed back up.

And today you could ask: Does it make common sense for a country to rule the world? But no matter what your answer, no matter what you think, no matter what you vote for–

We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up. No matter what.

We just keep calling em up, calling em, calling em up. No matter what.

 — Laurie Anderson 'Dark Time In The Revolution'

We Care A Lot

We Care A Lot About Disasters, Fires, Floods And Killer Bees
We Care A Lot About The NASA Shuttle Falling In The Sea
We Care A Lot About Starvation And The Food That Live Aid Bought
We Care A Lot About Disease, Baby Rock, Hudson, Rock, Yeah!

We Care A Lot About The Gamblers And The Pushers And The Geeks
We Care A Lot About The Crack And Smack And Whack That Hits The Street
We Care A Lot About The Welfare Of All The Boys And Girls
We Care A Lot About You People Cause We're Out To Save The World

YEAH!

And It's A Dirty Job But Someone's Gotta Do It

We Care A Lot About The Army Navy Air Force And Marines
We Care A Lot About The SF, NY And LAPD
We Care A Lot About You People, About Your Guns
About The Wars You're Fighting Gee That Looks Like Fun

We Care A Lot About The Garbage Pail Kids, They Never Lie
We Care A Lot About Transformers Cause There's More Than Meets The Eye

We Care A Lot About The Little Things, The Bigger Things We Top
We Care A Lot About You People Yeah You Bet We Care A Lot,

YEAH!

Well, Its A Dirty Job But Someone's Gotta Do It
And It's A Dirty Song But Someone's Gotta Sing It

 — Faith No More

Homeland Insecurity

Like was the Constitution written in invisible ink?
Has everybody here forgotten how to think?
Is this great big boat starting to sink?
 — Laurie Anderson 'Dark Time In The Revolution'

Hanging Around

US

No one likes us — I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens

We give them money — but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us — so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them

Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us

We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin', too

Boom goes London and boom Paris
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono babe
And there'll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now

— Randy Newman 'Political Science'

The Dreamers Ride Against The Man Of Action

A Well Respected Man

He dresses how he votes.
 — David Bridie '25 stations'

Fiasco

We need wisdom more than ever
Even with the best intentions
The centre cannot hold
The centre cannot hold
 — David Bridie 'The Centre Cannot Hold'

A Sociologist's Paradise

Far from crazy pavements -
the taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement
on a dirty afternoon
Where the fæcal germs of Mr Freud
are rendered obsolete
The legal term is null and void
In the case of Beasley Street

In the cheap seats where murder breeds
Somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don't need
- a sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower
Manslaughter your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours
On the edge of Beasley Street

Where the action isn't
That's where it is
State your position
Vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise
Ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies
In a box on Beasley Street

From the boarding houses and the bedsits
Full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men's overcoats
You can't see their feet
A riff joint shuts - opens up
Right down on Beasley Street

Cars collide, colours clash
disaster movie stuff
For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache
Revenge is not enough
There's a dead canary on a swivel seat
There's a rainbow in the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
Silence is the code

Hot beneath the collar
an inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor
impregnates the walls
the rats have all got rickets
they spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street

The hipster and his hired hat
Drive a borrowed car
Yellow socks and a pink cravat
Nothing La-di-dah
OAP, mother to be
Watch the three-piece suite
When shit-stoppered drains
and crocodile skis
are seen on Beasley Street

The kingdom of the blind
a one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined
the doorbells do not ring
A lightbulb bursts like a blister
the only form of heat
here a fellow sells his sister
down the river on Beasley Street

The boys are on the wagon
The girls are on the shelf
Their common problem is
that they're not someone else
The dirt blows out
The dust blows in
You can't keep it neat
It's a fully furnished dustbin,
Sixteen Beasley Street

Vince the aging savage
Betrays no kind of life
but the smell of yesterday's cabbage
and the ghost of last year's wife
through a constant haze
of deodorant sprays
he says retreat
Alsatians dog the dirty days
down the middle of Beasley Street

People turn to poison
Quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick
every time they kiss.
It's a sociologist's paradise
each day repeats
On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy
beastly Beasley Street

Eyes dead as vicious fish
Look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish
I would be a photograph
on a permanent Monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning
Around the back of Beasley Street

 — John Cooper Clarke 'Beasley Street'

Now And Then

There's something in your soul that makes me feel so old
In fact I think I've died about six hundred times
There's less of me now and more of me then

 — The Human League 'Almost Mediæval'

Unplaced

And I was green, greener than the hill
Where flowers grew and sun shone still
Now I’m darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me a place to be

 — Nick Drake 'Place To Be'