Lyrics

Ahprahran

Last Sunday I heard myself say
A good day for you is a good day for me
Can’t believe I’ve sunk this low
Is there something in it that I don’t know?

It’s just a matter of timing then
Big fish swallows small again
And the lamplight shining to my heart
Reminds me that I need a friend

You’ve got it, I want it, when you show me it’s real
You’ve got it, I want it, there’s something in the striving
That is worth holding on to
Ahprahran!

Last Sunday I heard myself say
A good day for you is a good day for me
Can’t believe I’ve sunk this low
Is there something in it? I don’t know

It’s just a matter of timing then
Big fish swallows small again
And it’s the I-N-T-U-I-T-I-V-E
In me that scares me

You’ve got it, I want it, when you show me it’s real
You’ve got it, I want it, there’s something in the striving
That is worth holding on to
Ahprahran!

90 days of moths and rust

I don’t want to hear what’s said
I don’t want to see you dead
Is this season worth retrieving?
You know I’m never ever gonna believe it
Until you make it up to me

Now it’s getting hard to take
And it’s getting hard to look
I can’t see beyond the next thing
But I’m never ever gonna give in
I’m only hanging around

Without you
High off the ground
Feathering the nest
A nest with a view

Angel’s wings are mothballed this spring
From too much winter lies and whispering
Fox and fire cannot dissuade me
Because I’m never ever gonna be free
As long as I’m up here

And I’m without you
High off the ground
Feathering the nest
A nest with a view

Seventeen

There’s a whisper through the hills
Calling me here again
Where I’ve been so many times
(But never so scared)

I know it will be different tonight
Just look at the weather
Fickle heart don’t let me be
Subject to her

Seventeen

And we find ourselves alone
With moonlit fields below
And we’re diving down
Forever down

They will not see us again
We’ll be gone by morning
Over streets and fences
I can’t say no

Take me with you!

Trumpet play

Caught on the crest of a waveless sea
There’s no one out here but the fish and me
Blairgowrie beach is now just a song
Haven’t seen the shore for so long

Dark city club where we used to meet
You were in the band, knocked me off of my
Feel dancing lightly and voices sigh
You caught me off guard, set my shirt tails on fire

In need of clear water I ran away
But I can still hear that trumpet play

Reinventing penicillin

This is not the garden that I wanted you to make
It is lacking in the subtleties that I appreciate
And it’s a typical mistake that anyone could make
And I’m expecting a lot from you

AM radio on late night
There’s a strange light in my room
Refractions off the walls and off the windows
And through the glass I see
The thing that always frightens me

This is not the garden that I wanted you to make
This is hardly what I had in mind

Looking at my finger through a microscope
I’m looking at the tattoo on her arm
A kid could lose her head for want of better words to tell
The thrill of looking at the earth
From two hundred thousand feet above the ground

This is not the garden that I wanted you to make
It is lacking in the subtleties that I appreciate
And it’s a typical mistake that anyone could make
And I’m expecting a lot from you

Letter from a lifeboat

Dreams within dreams are not always what they seem
Glimpse of a time that’s long since come
A match struck at midnight makes our faces glow
The shimmer on the water looked like dancing
So we did

Dear something
Dear someone

Letter from a lifeboat to a loved one
The weather’s here, wish the earth was too
I heard a message called, but from a lost dream
You never realise just how good the ship was
Till it’s gone

Dear something
Dear someone

Oil on the oil looks quite natural you know
Snow never melts if it’s always winter
A match struck at midnight makes an awful mess
If it’s in a lifeboat sailing blindly
On a black, black sea

Yr jacket

So the season turns again
Snake sheds her skin
Ooh it must feel so good
To ditch what’s old and slide within

I’ve been trying to read your silence, read your sighs
I’ve been trying to glimpse tomorrow in your eyes

Oh baby come glide with me
You know these pathways well enough
Just let me shake this skin I’ve got
And face you clean

I’ve been trying to read your silence, read your sighs
I’ve been trying to glimpse tomorrow in your eyes

I long for the day
When we can be at one, at peace
When you know this jumper’s tired and torn
And you wrap me up in yr jacket warm

Fruitloopin’

The hand that made a million coffees
And touched the work of God, like children
Finally grown hard with time change
Feelings follow
Don’t understand it
Don’t wish this fate on anyone

Corrosive and self-abasing
Your feelings times a world of people
The rust set in like love injected
I will not sway
I’ll this way be
Don’t wish this fate on me

Unkind

I’ve never know such desperation
Meeting as we did at the railway station
I’ve never known someone unkind
You’ve read books that tell you what to do
In this kind of situation
But me I’ve never felt so shy

Give me some confidence

If I could then I surely, surely would
Make provision for your loveliness as long as I do live
And I’d try to fully understand why
People say there’s good in everyone to those who they despise
Until this earth, for what it’s worth
Can be free from fear of something that might break it right apart
 
Give me some confidence
(She wrote letters from the sea – I’ll send them back again)
Give me some confidence
(If you stand with me I’ll walk by your side)
Give me some confidence
(I believe that love can last for a lifetime)
I really need some now
 
I know it’s nothing new, but I still like saying ‘I love you’
And walking by the place where we painted walls that time
You had a smile like that upon the Postcard cat
And when a train went by I thought we’d laugh until we dropped
But would it be the same if we were old and had the same surname
And could we find some truth before the oceans rise too high?
 
Give me some confidence
(She wrote letters from the sea – I’ll send them back again)
Give me some confidence
(If you stand with me I’ll walk by your side)
Give me some confidence
(I believe that love can last for a lifetime)
I think I need a bit now
 
Give me some confidence
(She wrote letters from the sea – I’ll send them back again)
Give me some confidence
(If you stand with me I’ll walk by your side)
Give me some confidence
(I believe that love can last for a lifetime)
I really need some now
Want it now

Police me

We’ve been called immature but that’s not all that has been said
Someone made the accusation that we were still breastfed
And there may be some truth in that but I don’t think it’s what they meant
A car chase ended wrong tonight with a kid out on his head
Down the railroad

Your perfunctory vocal tone implies that love won’t stay
And just like Roddy said, “it’s there until it goes away”
And if you had not been elsewhere I’d swear it’s something that you’d have said
Someone called an undertaker before that kid was dead
It’s true

We’ve been called immature but that’s not all that has been said
Someone made the stupid comment that we were still breastfed
And someone said that Flag Day reads like fifth form poetry
But I’ll write songs about injustice if that is what I see
All around me

Aloha Street

Our eyes first met across a crowded pool
It was clear we’d gone to very different schools
The smoke rings from her lipsticked lips
Spoke to me of cancelled trips

She said, “You’re consistent with my taste”
And blew the smoke into my face
Showed photos from the Wrestling Chair
I told a lie that I’d been there

We two talked close till it was late
Then made a pact we’d surely break
I wondered why I felt betrayed
But where was the love we thought we’d made?

Is there love in the heart of it?
In this great big spin are we being part of it?
Something that was said a long time ago
Is gonna make a whole lot more sense when I read it out tomorrow

Will we ever learn?

Would you say it’s human to expect to be loved from foot to head?
Well my head’s been on holidays since the day we met
Brushing my teeth this morning just about took out my eye
Would you say it’s getting better, do you think it’s worth a try?

Roman, ski-jump, Aquline – the nose that knows is always mine
It’s been ahead of me for quite some time
You’d never tell from looking but it’s your mouth that does betray you
It taught me how to kiss, but it has taught me how to bite too

Will we burn?
Or will we learn?
Will we ask forgiveness?
Will we learn?
Will we shake it up a bit?
Will we learn?
Will we do it again?
Will we ever, will we ever learn?

I used to worry about swallowing the apple core
About that seed that grows inside you
But I don’t care about that anymore
I want that apple tree inside me, inside me

Why should I swap this thing?
Trade in a life empiric
for some life as predictable
as a tired Mark Seymour lyric?

Will we burn?
Or will we learn?
Will we ask forgiveness?
Will we learn?
Will we shake it up a bit?
Will we learn?
Will we do it again?
Will we ever, will we ever learn?

Beloved

I’m the one who can’t forgive
I’m the one who can’t forget
You can hear it in my voice
You can see it in my step

Something’s come over me
There’s a hole where my heart used to be
From the moment that yr train
Pulled out from the station
I knew it was curtains for me

Now I’m the one who can’t forgive
I’m the one who can’t forget
You can see it in my eyes
You can see it in my chest

Now this caged bird has grown teeth
And one day you’ll turn your back
Then there’s no second chance, I’ll be out in the open
I’ll be finding my rightful place

Now I’m the one who can’t forgive
I’m the one who can’t forget
You can see it in my eyes
You can see it in my chest

Corn circles

Moving in circles, in circles always
Stoop down, collect what’s passing my way
We’re acting like we’re strangers but we’ve met before
And something in your eyes tells me there must be more
There must be more

One thousand smiles have formed on these lips
Since you first kissed them so discreetly
But distance cannot shade that summer in the corn
The night times were as dreamy as the days were warm
And they were warm

Moving in circles, in circles always

My mind is ripe, so come on, take me

What we had hoped

I had hoped to see
The rain fall down on the sunstruck face
And the wind to the sea
Wash away the clouded thoughts before I died

Drifting days, just to taste
Overwhelming fear and a helplessness
True release will I know
If there’s still some time to find (what) we hoped

Don’t survey too deep
It’s simple clear but hard to see
Hands out blind will find
The clarity I sought before I died

Everybody supermarket

M’s just got this letter and she says that it’s addressed to everyone
So we stood out on the footpath and opened it out there and the sky was clear

Across the sea
This word I send
While you’re still young
A love for everyone

We read it out aloud and it was like an invitation to be happy
And everybody’s face just seemed to radiate the same feelings I was getting

Across the sea
This word I send
If not for me
A love for everyone

Another faux pas

She fell into my lap like a falling star
And I instinctively start talking about fast bikes and cars
Eventually I ask her why her arm is in plaster
Says she broke it and her Mum died in a highway disaster
And she says she hates cars with all her life
And she never wants to see another one
And my hopes are blown open wide
To the furthest point in the galaxy

It’s easy to get edgy when your nerves have been tried
When there’s no one waiting for you in the car outside
In a hospital reception it can be hard to see reason
So I ask this girl who she supports in the football season
And she says she hates football with all her life
And royal blue is not her favourite colour
And once again my hopes are blown open wide
To the furthest point in the galaxy

Sway

To say that I was disappointed
is less than is the truth
It seems so sad to say goodbye
to something we both knew
The ideals which you based this plan on
have been lost on the way
When I think of what we used to share
I sometime have to close my eyes and sway

My youthful vigour had its price
and now I wish I’d help my tongue
Riding a pushbike with no hands
seems quite a natural thing to do when you’re young
I’d like to think you’ll change your tune
but if you did what could I say?
When a broken promise stings you badly
you sometimes have to close your eyes and just sway

Top 40 sculpture

See the world through multi-coloured glasses
Get a happy view – get a life too
See the things you thought were ever-constant
Disappearing fast, fading now from view

Make believe by following the river
From the delta up to the falls
These ravines police will never plunder
And these mountains they’ll never crawl

For now we can see dimly
But then it will be clearer
And thought the days seem long now
My strength is made perfect in weakness

Here at home we walk alone in safety
It’s a big city, but the risks are small
Saturdays can still provide some comfort
Laidley, Allison, Carey, Longmire... goal!

How can I seriously be expected to sleep peacefully
When these decisions upon my pillow are far too big for me
Let me know, just show me a sign
If you think I’m wasting time
It seems so curious to say
Heard a sound in here the other day
Couldn’t decide if I should
‘Stay with me’ I heard before I turned
So why did I walk the other way?
It’s my heart, but it feels the same
Turn about-face on a crowded train
It’s hard, but I will try