Song #30 Sunny Avenue

 

SUNNY AVENUE

(Listen) 

Walkin’ along sunny avenue

Wondrin’ where all – all my time goes

Seein’ palm trees in my head

How and where will I get the bread

So many things to do

On this sunny avenue

Think I’ll stay home

Why go anywhere

 

All my friends are scrimpin, savin’

For their dream world far away

But we’ve got blue sky

And we’ve got Queensland

Why would we ever want to leave it?

What’s the point in tryin’?

What you gonna find there

That’s not here?

 

BRIDGE/CHORUS

Gotta cross them bridges

Leave everything behind

Gotta cross them bridges

Leave everything behind

Everybody’s always telling you

Just where you should be going

But if you decide yourself

You’ll come up with something better

 

All my friends are scrimpin, savin’

For their dream world far away

But we’ve got blue sky

And we’ve got Queensland

Why would we ever want to leave it?

What’s the point in tryin’?

What you gonna find there

That’s not here?

 

BRIDGE/CHORUS

(1982 Michael Coghlan/Hiske Weijers)

Commentary

Hiske and I wrote this one together. It was an unabashed attempt at writing something commercial sounding - a pop song really. No deep or hidden meanings here. Just a bunch of cliches that hang together nicely with a jaunty reggae rhythm. Still play it occasionally.

 

Song #29 Song for Margot

Sometime in 1982 Jeff and I began playing with Margot in our Last Wave trio. Margot played congas and sang. I had written an instrumental tune that we were experimenting with and Margot asked if she could have a go at writing some lyrics to it. That was fine with me, but we were very clear that we didn’t want it to be religious. (Margot was an avid Christian.) Some time later we were playing an outdoor gig in an Adelaide park on Easter Sunday when Margot suggests we do the song. Jeff and I were expecting to play it as an instrumental but Margot started singing – about Easter Sunday and the risen Christ!!!! We were stunned. I guessed we finished the song and at the end of the gig we agreed that we should go our separate ways. I went away and wrote the following lyrics to tell the story of what happened that day and it became one of my better and favourite songs. And it still is. Written in an upbeat English folk song style.

Margot – if you’re out there somewhere – thank you. And if you ever read this I hope there are no hard feelings.

 

SONG FOR MARGOT

I once wrote a song and it went like this

I gave it to a friend to write some words to

But she was a woman of God you see

She couldn’t find the words that suited me

She sang about God and she sang about a day

She sang about the love that the Christians say

Will save the whole world when the sky comes down

But I thought I could do it on my own

So we sang without words

We sang to the sky

We sang to the sun that shone in my eye

We sang to the people in the park that day

We sang the same tune in our different ways

 

She had long blond hair and she played on her drum

She played with the spirit of a life that’s done

With love and care for the people she sees

But she was blind to the truth that guided me

She couldn’t believe that the life we lived

Could be empty of the way she thought should work

So we sang without words, we sang the same tune

In different keys of the life we play

At the end of the song

We knew it was time

For the parting of the ways that we each must find

We sang without words

We sang to the sky

We sang to the people that happened by

Because of a tune that I wrote one day

It’s yours now friend if you’d like to play

 

(Copyright Michael Coghlan 1982)

 

Song #28 With Her

 

WITH HER

 

Got no money, nowhere to go

No so funny with the old roads closed

Involved in a new life

Love and keeping still

Patience required to check the restless will

 

These times in the past

You’d have hit the road this morning

Free and alone; lonely and easy

Now the wind in the grass

Blows sometimes without you

 

But the smiles on waking

The hugs for the shaking

Feelings of a child in doubt

And in love

 

Means the sun can go down

And never return

The wind blow without me

The grass to brown be burned

 

I got no money, nowhere to go

But new roads are open

And this life with her still new

With love to help me through

With her to see me through

With me to help me through

With us to help me through

 

(1982)

Commentary

I have no memory of writing this; nor how the song went. No longer alone I'm now grappling with the changed nature of life. Exchanged freedom and loneliness for love! 

Song #27 An English Folk Song

 In 1982 Hiske and I were doing a lot of busking and constantly looking for new and entertaining songs to sing on the street. Old English folk songs seemed very popular so we decided to write this light-hearted little ditty making fun of what seemed to be a standard format for so many English folk songs. (For the record, I love old English folks songs :) It proved quite popular. 

AN ENGLISH FOLK SONG

 

I am an English folk song and I go like this

If I had a sir in front of my name you could call me Sir John

But I’m not Sir John

I am an English folk song and I go like this

 

CHORUS

I’m not Dutch

G for German

F for French

I am an English folk song and I go like this

 

I must be sung through the nose

Or they won’t know what you say

You’ll be hearing me a hundred years from now

Once century to the next

 

And I use the same chords every year

So you won’t get confused

And I wouldn’t be an English folk song

If I didn’t go like this

 

CHORUS

Michael Coghlan/Hiske Weijers 1982)

Song #26 The Ugly Australian

 

I wrote this song after a deck class passage on a Greek ferry between Greece and Haifa. Deck class was cheap and basic – you slept outside on deck but a meal was included. I complained about the dreadful meal (don’t remember what it was) but to placate me they put in the first class lounge. I sat there alone for quite some time before I was served a meal that wasn’t that much better.

Decades later I added a verse to highlight the plight of refugees languishing in Australian off-shore detention centres.

 

THE UGLY AUSTRALIAN

(listen HERE)

 

You put shit food down in front of me and expect me to eat it

You put me up in the first class lounge with my anger and expect that to placate it

I’m on a foreign boat in a foreign sea In times foreign to us all

At times like this I'm wonderin' why I’m so far from my native shore

So I’m going home

 

I’m tired of the ever moving round

I’m tired of the ever changing ground

 

Australia will you wait for me with your long and golden shore?

You’re a land of sun and dreams they tell me

But I wanna know for sure so I’m coming home

 

Are you keeping up with fashion? Or are you keeping down the poor?

Are you looking down the barrel? Or has nothing changed at all?  I’m going home.

 

You put shit food down in front of me and expect me to eat it

You stick me out on an offshore island with my pain and expect that to placate it

I’m in a foreign place in a foreign sea in times foreign to us all

Australia was what I was looking for - why I left my native shore

Now I can’t go home

 

I’m tired of the never moving round

I’m tired of the never changing ground

 

Australia I will wait for you with your long and golden shores

You’re a land of sun and dreams they tell me

Will I ever know for sure? I have no home

 

Are we closing up the country? Have we locked up all the doors?

Are those in need no longer welcome? When did we get so mean?

And they can’t go home

They have no home

(1982 and 2020)

 

 

 

 

 

Song #25 One Fine Day

 

ONE FINE DAY

 

One fine day I’m gonna be a rich man

One fine day I’m gonna be a rich man

And win the lottery;

I’ll split tween you and me the money

And give it all away

 

CHORUS

Give it all away to those with nothin’ to buy a new car

Give it all away to those with nothin’ to buy a new star of hope

 

You got an alibi; all got an alibi

You like your comforts

And your shower in the morning yeh yeh with your radio

With your radio; listen to what?

You don’t know – you’re not listening no no

You’re not listening no no

 

To that voice in your head that tells you

You don’t always need to get more

You know the prisons are full of those who suffered from your greed

 

Give it all away, give it all away

You got too much, you don’t need it no no

You don’t need it no no, all that money no no

So give it all away, give it all away

 

CHORUS

 

Give it all away, give it all away

You got too much, you don’t need it no no

You don’t need it no no, all that money no no

So give it all away, give it all away (repeat and fade)

(1982)

Commentary

A little reggae riff with a few throwaway lyrics that contain a little reggae attitude :) Enjoyable to play. Would make a good band song. 

 

Song #24 Strange Appointments

 

STRANGE APPOINTMENTS

 

CHORUS

Strange appointments every day

The strangest people every day

Playin’ on the street

The only way to meet

The strangest people every day

Playin’ on the street

 

“Come to dinner” the man said

“Come meet my wife and family”

Come talk about life and death with me

Come marry me – I love you already

 

CHORUS

 

Man in the distance behind the small crowd

“Come live with me and keep my life afloat”

But who says I’m not sinking?

        Who says I’m not sinking?

Playin’ on the street

 

CHORUS

(1982)

Commentary

Late in 1981 I returned to Kibbutz Gevim to work as a volunteer. There I met Hiske – I heard her singing through the wall. She was staying in the next room in the volunteers’ quarters. We soon started singing together – firstly in The Irrigation Band (true!) – and then busking as a duo on the streets of Israel and Holland. Busking for a living was an extraordinary experience. You become public property and get exposed to the weird, wonderful and extremely vulnerable who all want to be your instant friend. (And at last I was lonely no more!)

Song #23 Sri Lanka

 In 1981 I went on the first of my many visits to Sri Lanka. Courtesy of my dear friend Louise, and Titus and the generous inhabitants of the village of Weligama, it was to become a home away from home for a few years. It’s hard to put into words the joy I felt living there, but the song gives a fair idea of how smitten I was with the place.

Alas real life punctured the idealised version of Sri Lankan life I conjured up in these lyrics. Titus’ premature death in a road accident and a 20 year long civil war put a stop to our magical visits there. (An account of my return to Weligama after 20+ years is HERE.)

 

SRI LANKA

 

(You) surprise me with your smiling eyes

A greeting so warm for me

I’d like to return your openliness

But Western pent-up insecurities die hard

I’d like to look at you as you look at me

But you smile so much

People of the Pearl – you’re charmed with a grace

Rarely spotted in the family of man

Children of paradise with Eden as your garden

No fences, concrete, smog, or canned food

Noble savages and little kings

Princes, princesses, and kings

So regal in your stance; so willing in your glance

To share the joy of home and living

 

CHORUS

Sri Lanka I don’t know thee

But already I love thee

Sri Lanka I don’t know thee

But already I love thee

 

“To the Family of Man we belong”

Twice you’ve told me in these so few days

Respect for your leaders and their path of neutrality

To warmth and kindness, sympathy and charity

I see it in your eyes to me

I see it in your eyes to them – your countrymen

Loved, chided, and left to wander

I can’t forget the children

“Were you once like they are now?” I ask the older ones

Do you know how lucky you are?

To wander these grasses, these jungles and beaches

Unfettered by the world as it groans

Can it last? Will it last? A monument to the beauty of people and places

 

CHORUS

Sri Lanka I don’t know thee

But already I love thee

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

 

(Copyright Michael Coghlan 1981)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Song #22 Ballad of Jo Moore

Back in the late 70s/early 80s there was an Adelaide rock band called The Fabulaires. They had developed quite a following and things were beginning to take off for them. Their singer was a beautiful young woman called Jo Moore. She had a wonderful voice and a great stage presence. One night on the way back from playing a gig in the country she and her partner and band guitarist Michael were hit by a truck. Jo was asleep on the back seat and died instantly. Michael and Jo were good friends. I think you’d like the song Jo. I still sing it sometimes but I have to pick the right moment. I must record it one day. (Done - 28/7/21!)

BALLAD OF JO MOORE

(listen here)

 

Is it strange to be sitting around

Late at night when the sun’s gone down

Thinkin’ of someone who lives no more?

And that was her name – Jo Moore

I hope you don’t mind Jo if I sing this song

About the way you left us

 

You were a singer of the best kind

You sang it with feeling, you sang it with melody

Every time

Her name was Jo Moore and even her name

Begs a song to tell her story

 

Travellin’ home from a gig up the country

Asleep when the truck hit

Asleep on the back seat

You didn’t even wake up

To know a thing about it

 

CHORUS

You were a singer of the best kind

You sang it with feeling, you sang it with melody

Every time

The guys in the front row they couldn’t take their eyes off you

And the ladies in the back row the same

‘Cos you were a singer of the best kind

You sang it with feeling, you sang it with melody

 Every time

 

Is it strange to be sitting around

Late at night when the sun’s gone down

Thinkin’ of someone who lives no more?

And that was her name - Jo Moore

I know there aren’t many Jo

Of all those who met you

Who’d ever wanna forget you

‘Cos ….

 

CHORUS

 

(Copyright Michael Coghlan 1981)

Song #21 Go Where You Will

 

GO WHERE YOU WILL

 

Take a walk down by the sea

What do you see there - please tell me

Do you see your dreams in a golden sky?

Or does the wind blow cold in your eye?

 

            REFRAIN

            Tellin’ you things you’d rather not know

            ‘Bout the pain inside cos you’re on your own

 

What do you see if you look at the sky?

Crystal plumes of a bird so high

Gates of paradise open wide

Or thunder and lightning; heaven on fire?

 

            REFRAIN

 

Take a walk down to the desert

Mirage of beauty but you can’t have it

Dunes of glory and soft palm trees

But if the sun goes down you’re gonna freeze

           

REFRAIN

 

Talk a walk anywhere you will

Where the sea is calm and all is still

Where the air is clear; you can feel the thrill

Breathe in and enjoy it; it is not real

           

Nothin’ reminds you of the feeling inside

The pain is gone but you’re still alone

 1981

Commentary

Still struggling with being alone.... does the beauty of the natural world bring joy or pain? I don't remember how this went. It must have had a tune at some point but clearly not very memorable! It will live on as a poem.

 

Song #20 Lights Across the Water

 

I have briefly referred to my time on Patmos earlier in this blog. Friend Peter and I landed on Patmos quite by accident sometime during 1981. That is where 'the next boat to a quiet island' was heading when we inquired at Piraeus. Them were the days! On Patmos we met a group of people who were part of a self-help group. They were led by an Australian couple who interviewed/counselled/advised everyone who joined the group. Peter and I rather interviewed them as I remember and we decided we didn’t need to be part of the group.

After a wonderful week or so hanging out on the remote beach of Psili Amos it was time for me to leave. I left by ferry and by chance the Australian couple were on board. We sat out on deck for a while that night and I chatted to the golden-bearded Australian guy while his partner clung to his arm sobbing. He quite happily chatted away with me while ignoring his distraught partner. Fascinating way for people running a self-help group to behave I mused. The image has never left me and some time after I wrote a song that referenced this strange, unsettling event.

The song’s called Lights Across the Water. There's also a set of slides to the song on YouTube.

Lyrics are in this earlier post, together with the song itself – a simple but slowly building arrangement that I’ve always enjoyed playing. Despite it's simplicity, or perhaps because of it, the song has a power about it.

Song #19 The Last Wave

 

THE LAST WAVE

 

Give me some green fields

Some green fields of home

Green fields of anywhere

The seven hills of Rome

The city that took me stronger than storm

Where I refound my saviour

But I was love lost and worn

 

We’re comin’ in on the last wave

We’re comin’ in on the last wave

 

Besuited and clean cut

They stand at my door

Charmed by a light

As bright as the dawn

With charming ideas naïve in extreme

Fairies in the garden

Are not what they seem

 

They’re comin’ in on the last wave

We’re comin’ in on the last wave

 

Mother Earth quakes at the sound of our roar

But battles on bravely

If you open the door

So just let her in as Rome continues to burn

With the oil of Mohammed’s men

It’s once again their turn

 

They’re comin’ in on the last wave

Are we comin’ in on the last wave?

We’re comin’ in on the last wave

 

There’s a man with his finger

On the nuclear button

We’ve lost it, we’ve sold out

We’re a race of gluttons

 

They’re comin’ in on the last wave

Are we comin’ in on the last wave?

We’re comin’ in on the last wave

 

Copyright Michael Coghlan 1980

Commentary

My end of the world moment. (It was the eighties!) Sprinkled with references to religion (Rome, Mormons, Mohammed) and a long tale that needs to be told one day in another format.

I used to really enjoy playing this song in a duo with Jeff Witt. I think we actually called ourselves The Last Wave for a while. Quite anthemic but its time has passed.

 

Song #18 Foreign Coastlines

FOREIGN COASTLINES

(average recording with slides)

 

You stand there insulting the people who love you

You don’t understand that they like to be near you

So why do you keep on destroying the scenery

With pointless descriptions of times far away – far away from here?

If you’re still living there

Then why are you standing here

On this cliff of the poet

Why don’t you just blow it away: this dream of yours?

 

So you’re caught in the storm of a foreign coastline

Do you have to keep telling me that you’ve seen other places?

Do you have to keep telling me that those other people were fine?

Just who are you talking to? I don’t think it’s me

Just who are you talking to? I don’t think it’s me or mine

 

No thank you mister I don’t like gems

I’m sick and tired of your goddamn gems

Why do you talk to me when I want to be alone on the hill?

 

I go on insulting the people who love me

I don’t understand that they want to be near me

So why do I keep on destroying the scenery

With tear-jerking memories of times far away  - far away from here?

She’s there; not fair.

Copyright Michael Coghlan 1980

Commentary

Written on the Isle of Wight, and inspired by a fellow Australian who walked with me along the coast talking incessantly about all the other great places he'd visited! Also includes some interesting messages to self, and still missing my long lost love The poet referred to is Tennyson who lived in the region for 40 years. Originally written and sung in a very high vocal register which is beyond me now so have recently rearranged it in a lower key. The song has stood the test of time pretty well.

 

 

Song #17 Welcome to the Eighties

I think this was the first time I wrote a song for a specific purpose. I was playing at Gingers on New Year's Eve, 1979, and wanted to have a new song to celebrate the passing of the 70s and the arrival of the 80s. It's a mixture of nonsense and serious ideas that tried to encapsulate some of the significant themes and trends of the time. It was the kernel of a good song but like so many others I didn't ever take the time to refine it. It had quite a pleasant, upbeat rocky feel.

WELCOME TO THE EIGHTIES

 

Welcome to the eighties: it’s been a little shaky

Makin’ it this far and seeing the seventies out

No matter how you’re feeling your head may still be reelin’

It’s been 16 years since Twist and Shout

The Beatles never did reform; police still wear uniform

It’s even more the age of “complete this form please”

 

Will the pie carts go stereo, computers steal your radio?

Talk to friends on video?

Silicon chippio; space shuttle it’s a go

Will you work out where you want to go?

We haven’t seen the last of Mexico

 

Doom and catastrophe, will interstellar geography

Be within the reach of the simple man?

If the awesome brand new eighties features such a creature

If the awesome brand new eighties features such a creature

 

Peace, love and happiness, or peace, love and syphilis?

Or dole bludgin’ blues in an urban slum?

Queueing up forever buying cheque-fulls of sun

Queueing up forever buying cheque-fulls of fun

Queueing up forever buying cheque-fulls of glum?

 

 

Tricky Dicky Nixon and smilin’ Jimmy Carter

Darling Maggie Thatcher – Big Jim couldn’t catch here

Dear old Mother England has lost her way

Sone quit and rested; others were arrested

Making mega buck-ups the political way

Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa

Iran, Pakistan, Uganda, Kampuchea

What’s there to say?

 

Electronic pinball; Tommy’s gone to Rollerdrome

Can’t escape those neon lights, there’s a moog in every home

 Windy Hill by laser light; casinos take your dollars right?

They’re all run by UFOs on eastern mystic guru might

Buddha, Hare Krishna, praise the Lord and Allah

Will the 1980s please tell us just who the hell is right?

 

Well if you’re confused then join the club

Join me on a flight to Sirius tonight

If you’re confused then join the club

Join me on a flight to Sirius tonight

                                     to Sirius tonight

                                     to Sirius tonight

It’s too serious tonight.

 

Copyright  31/12/79

 

 

 

Alone in Lincoln

 

I had not been back to Port Lincoln on my own as an adult since I lived there as a child. I have been back with my wife and children, my brother, and on several work trips – but never alone. And I discovered that when you return alone to a place where you have an intense personal connection the experience is much more personal. You’re not trying to filter out the inconsequential memories for the sake of the company you’re with; not trying to stop deep reservoirs of emotion welling up from within. You can explore without fear of embarrassment all the silly memories that occur as you retrace your footsteps from long ago; follow the random threads of memory as they pop up – triggered by turning a corner, standing on a wharf or jetty, or seeing something you had long forgotten. So, driving and roaming the streets of Lincoln this time around was an unexpectedly strong emotional experience.

I re-enacted the walk we used to take to school every day. It took me 13 minutes at adult dawdling speed to get from our old home to the school gate so one can assume that it took at least 15 minutes each way. And halfway along the route is a major intersection with a busy highway and no traffic lights or pedestrian crossing. No doubt it is busier these days but it would still have required a level of trust from our parents to allow me and my young brother (aged 5 and 7) to negotiate that intersection twice a day.

Port Lincoln is such a lovely place. A huge sheltered harbour, a calm safe beach in the centre of town, a delightful main street, a large functioning port with big ships that is accessible to the public, stunning coastal landscapes within an hour’s drive, and a marina chock full of yachts and a large fishing fleet. I will be eternally grateful to my parents for moving there and offering me 5 years of childhood freedom. I think my young brother and I got the best of this move to the country. We were both still in primary school and simply relished the joy of riding our bikes around town, going fishing on the town jetty, and playing in the scrub on vacant lots near where we lived. Or we could play football or cricket in our own vast backyard which we converted into mini cricket or football fields depending on the season. My older siblings had other things on their mind – the pressures of high school and the dating game. I got the best of both worlds: a child’s paradise for my primary school years and back to the city for a better education and immersion in a more expansive cultural landscape for my teen years.

After 50 plus years I still feel a sense of great joy and calm every time I go back to Lincoln. I fill with the glow of happy memories and a sense of belonging. It still feels like my place.

 

Song #16 Images

 

IMAGES

 

If images tell the story

Hiding behind their screen

Are people with open hearts likely to win?

 

If their truth is bottled

In receptacles of caution

Awaiting any future holocaust

 

As children’s eyes beam

And dog tongues do slobber

So do adult eyes cry

 

For simple understanding

The right to express emotion

About the years to come

 

A rolling stone capitulates

As the holy book warns

Prophets are venerated as a new source of bliss

 

A world views its ransom

The animal in us is winning

Must we now be stripped of our clothes?

 

Is it time to answer our hearts?

Do cliches follow cliches?

Creating their own?

 

1979

 

Commentary

In truth I don’t know what this is about but I have a few clues. Clearly I had been doing some thinking! I might leave the meaning to the critics 😊 Written more as a poem than song lyrics, nevertheless there is a melody that I still remember and is quite therapeutic to play.

Song #15 Picking Up the Holy Pieces

 

PICKING UP THE HOLY PIECES

 

See the ant climb up the wall

I know you’re back but that ain’t all

I lost my sanity in a squall of peace and quiet once before

When you walked out the door

You went looking for war

 

With anything you could get your hands on

I hope you forgive me if you think I’m wrong

Just be careful you’re not riding far too high when you fall

You might have to cry

Your pride might die

 

See the ant climb up the wall

Escaping the shell as the building falls

But like the hurricane that rages round my brain it has to die

Crumble and fall

Crumble, wither and fall

 

                I’m picking up pieces of three years ago

                And I’ve come to say hello

                I’ve come to say hello

 

                I travelled down south to your no longer land

                Where you’ve buttered someone else’s bread

                While you raised that land from the dead

 

                The people who live there have wandered for years

    Now they’re ripping off tourists and playing their fears

    As they sputter down highways and look for the gears

 

    Ten Golden Rule mountain stands centre of all

    Moses has gone; his reputation is tall

    While some are still counting just how many rules he gave us

    To help us along the way

 

    Well I’ve picked up the pieces of three years ago

                I feel like it’s time to cry

    I’ve picked up the pieces of three years ago

    I’ve come to say goodbye

                I feel like it’s time to cry

    I’ve come to say goodbye

    I’ve come to say goodbye

(1979)

Commentary

I wrote this when I finally got back to Israel. Reading over these lyrics again has reminded me of just how big an impression Israel made on me. Someone once suggested that I may have lived there in a previous life but I think it has more to do with my Catholic upbringing and my love of desert landscapes. I felt very at home there. I was once very proud of this song - in which I'm clearly glad to be back there but worried about the direction she was heading. I now find my love of Israel at the time uncomfortable to explain. Some interesting use of metaphor here and some of it a bit clunky! I stopped playing the song long ago when I became disillusioned with Israel and don't remember how it went.

 

 

ADELAIDE BORN

 At about 1 min .32 sec you'll see why I've posted this. 

Around 1990 I decided to enter a talent show on a morning TV program called Touch of Elegance. (God knows why!!) I remember enjoying the experience and was pleased that I'd managed to perform the song live without any major dramas.

I was given a copy of my performance on video cassette but I lost it somewhere along the way. I'd virtually forgotten that it had ever happened until yesterday when out of the blue comes this message from ex TAFE colleague, Peter Allen, via Facebook messenger. What Peter was looking for when he found this is yet to be revealed. Peter - care to share??

Anyway - as I said - hard to believe I was ever that young, but very happy to relive this brief moment in the public eye. Thanks Peter :)

LISTEN TO THE WHOLE SONG HERE

Song #14 Life Upon the Skyways

 

LIFE UPON THE SKYWAYS

 

I’m sitting in a journey from armchair to armchair

And as I gaze across the street I feel I’ve got something to say

I’d like to float upon the skyways

To a land across the Dreamtime

To another land of desert that’s the home of the Jew

Who find it hard to smile as I do here today

With each day that life that grows longer

Who’s lost along the way?

 

Some have chosen to stay home; others wandered far

In these past few months I’ve seen them go

And I wonder how they are

It makes life upon the home front just a little bit harder

I walk the streets for the old times

But there’s none to be found

Like the seas around a mountain, it’s time against my spirit

Must one accept with resignation

That the gloom’s too tough

                                   Too tough to beat

 

I was feeling outnumbered so I got numbered out

The room was full of these strange lonely faces and mine

The earth goes on circling

Through the good times and bad times

It happened before and it will do again

 

These words that I’ve had to say raise up a smile

For the answer is simple – win, lose, or draw

The joy is in the telling; it’s in the trudging of highways

There are choices before you

It’s life upon the skyways

The answer is simple – not black, not white, but grey

The answer is simple – it’s up this way and grey

It’s up this way today

Come on this way today

Come on this way, up this way

And pray

 

1978

COMMENTARY 

Around the time that I wrote this song there was an American singer called Captain Beefheart. He and his Magic Band released a song called Moonbeams and Blue Jeans that I really liked and I intentionally decided to use the song’s melody for these lyrics. This was the one and only time I did this but essentially I plagiarised the Captain Beefheart song. I never recorded it and I didn’t really ever try and pass it off as mine. I still know how to play it and like the way it sounds 😊 Obviously I was still pining for Israel…..

Song #13 Banana Skins and Incense

 

At about the age of 14 I was sitting at the back of the bus on the way home from school talking with friends about what ‘mellow yellow’ meant. I was told it meant the high you got from smoking banana skins! Ten years later Donovan, writer of the hit song, Mellow Yellow, performed at Adelaide’s Apollo Stadium. Around the same time Grateful Dead performed a concert alongside the pyramids at Giza.

This song compares aspects of the two concerts.  I’m not sure I believe this now that I come to write it, but I have always said this was the only song I had ever written that took as long to write as it takes to play it. That is, it just popped out organically as a finished product. It couldn’t have been that quick but I do remember it happened very quickly and with little effort. And I still consider it a fine song. Rare for songs to just come put like that.

And 24 year old Michael thought he was getting old … ha!

 

BANANA SKINS AND INCENSE

(Listen HERE)

Mellowing in my old age

Donovan sure had it won

Sitting up there on a bed of flowers

Apollo Stadium looks and cowers at his beauty

The critics they canned him while others they loved him

I just sat on the fence

Remembering dreams and talk about burning

Banana skins and incense

Banana skins and incense

Had a hit and got high

Got as high as a kite

I’m going to Itchycoo Park tonight

Where the Small Faces are knocking out ballads

Little tin soldiers and all

 

But life in the classroom ain’t bad

I’m viewing the wonders of Giza

Grateful Dead under a full bright moon

Jerry Garcia saying, “I’ll tell you soon what happened there”

When he knows!

The critics they weren’t there while others they loved it

I read it in Rolling Stone

And I had a dream and did some burning of

Banana skins and incense

Banana skins and incense

Had a hit and got high

Got as high as a kite

I’m putting away my strings for the night

‘Cos Itchycoo Park would be far too cold

And after all we’re getting old.

 

(Copyright Michael Coghlan 1978)

Song #12 A Pebble in the Ocean

 

I did sing this as a song for a short time but whatever tune belonged to it has long gone. Reads more like a poem now and I was obviously trying to say something meaningful using a sustained sea metaphor. I suspect I was also being deliberately oblique trying to disguise something that I didn’t want to be too obvious but I don’t remember what it may have been 😊

 

A PEBBLE IN THE OCEAN

 

I’ll drop a pebble in the ocean

And if you’re near please just wave

Smile and be buffeted

And I’ll ride your sweet return

 

If you’d rather make a storm

Just send a warning sign

And I’ll float on over to mine

It may be choppy but it’s warm

 

Stars are like people

Both shine and lead us astray

Provide light and comfort

Through both the night and day

 

But it’s night time that storms

The peace and the calm away

When disparate lovers play

While others can only dream

 

The dark of night gives rest and solace

The dark of night disturbs the ripples

Of honest understanding

And lost misunderstanding

 

Join waves; make slaves

Remember the knave of bondage

You’re an island, part of the sea

Please just let us all be.

1978

 

Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo - Review

Little Theatre, The Cloisters, University Of Adelaide, Thu 14 May.

Presented by Adelaide University Theatre Guild

The Iraq war was a descent into madness – a war based on fabricated evidence of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. The absurdly named Coalition Of The Willing, Australia amongst them, waded into a war that created a hell that helped unleash Al-Quaeda, the Islamic state, and a host of other miseries upon the Iraqi people. It is in this hell that Rajiv Joseph sets his award-winning play. We view events through the eyes of American soldiers, Iraqi civilians, the son of Saddam Hussein, and the ghost of a tiger that has escaped the Baghdad zoo.

The dialogue is laced with dark humour as we watch the soldiers lose their sanity, limbs and the crass souvenirs of war that they hold dear. The military presence brings nothing but misery to Iraqi civilians. Musa, a local Iraqi gardener played by Nigel Tripodi, initially tries to gain from employment as an interpreter but ultimately despairs at the foreigners’ stupidity and lack of sensitivity towards their customs and culture.

The play’s telling irony is that the most intelligent and aware character in the play is an animal’s ghost. Only he, played with great presence by David Grybowski (looking suspiciously like a crazy Spike Milligan) sees the pathos and tragedy of innocent lives being lost as a city burns, the layers of sadness, and the pointlessness of the conflict.

Oliver de Rohan effectively portrays marine Kev’s personal descent into madness. His soldier mate Tom (Adam Tuominen) is played with just the right amount of bluster and bravado befitting the stereotypical profile of an American Marine before he too is forced to face his own fallibility staring into the eyes of a leper.

Multiple short scenes keep the pacing lively. Carefully chosen musical interludes between scenes reinforce the growing sense of futility. The set and staging is visually engaging and everyone is close to the action within the Little Theatre.

While the take home message of this production may be on the bleak side, the play itself is entertaining and a touch eccentric. It’s a good combination supported by a strong cast, an impressive set, and enlightened direction by Nick Fagan.

(Also published on The Clothesline.)