Song #64 Santorini

 

CC image courtesy of Maggie Meng

SANTORINI

Santorini

Santorini

Santorini – we had such high hopes for you

They once called you Atlantis a long long time ago

We sailed into your darkness and came up against you -

You’re a jagged unforgiving land and you have lost your soul

You play with us like laughing clowns in a twisted carnival

 

Set ‘em up to knock them down

Get ready – easy pickings

Get ready - there are tourists in town

 

Get ‘em drunk – they’re gone tomorrow

They’re richer than their blue jeans show

They’re captives on this island

They’ll pay the price only locals know

 

La Bamba, Club Atlantis

You can dance down at the Lido,

Boppin’ young flesh down at the Rio

Nirvana in Acapulco

 

Meet Neptune at the Roxy

Get stoned – Marrakesh disco

Cocktails a la Adonis

ACDC rules Atlantis OK

 

Let ‘em stew ‘cos we don’t savvy

Their foreign ways and their weird lingo

There’s no need to scrape and smile

For like the wind they come and go

 

There’ll be more on the next boat

We don’t want them here anyhow

So let’s send them all a-packin’

Let’s have a real good row

 

And rip em’ off.

 

You’ve come to Greece , well here’s Led Zeppelin

A stairway to heaven

Ouzo, Metaxa, and retsina

Dionysus lets the good times roll

 

Apollo rocks with Aphrodite

Woodstock is at the Mars Bar

Get your rocks off at Paradiso

Copacabana

 

Santorini – we had such high hopes for you

They once called you Atlantis a long long time ago

We sailed into your darkness and came up against you

Santorini

Santorini

You’ve lost it.

 

(Michael Coghlan 1992)

COMMENTARY: a possible site of the mythical Atlantis legend, so much of Santorini truly was a big disappointment. Nightclubs and bars with stereotypical names to appeal to mindless young travellers – Lido, Paradiso, the Roxy, etc. But move out of the larger (spectacular!)  towns and you can find the peace and beauty typical of most Greek islands. It was a complicated song – lots of changes of pace – and I’ve almost completely forgotten how it went. Probably won’t try and resurrect it. It belongs to another life.

 

Song #63 Deep Creek

 

DEEP CREEK

(listen and watch HERE, or just listen HERE)

  When the wind comes up you'd better brace yourself
  It can catch you unprepared and sweep you down to the valley below
  Where your fears lie unprotected and your demons stalk too close
  You're gonna need a guide to help you that's never walked on a city street

  And as you look back up you no longer stand above
  All those fears you've been hiding lie awaiting round the next bend
  Of the creek that's deep and winding on its journey to the sea
  The water has gone before you and cut you out a path to see

  You're standing there with nothing but yourself and the water to show you
  The way you must go with those fears inside your head
  About those other people and what they might think of you
  You step into the icy water and it chills you to the soul

  You're losing all your history as you begin to start to know
  That you can't sink any lower so it's onward you must go

  Your eyes caress the mountains as you begin your slow sojourn
  It all looks so familar but you have lost control
  Of everything that's happened in that life on those city streets
  You get a taste of future wisdom as you go down Deep Creek

  You're gonna need a guide to help you that's never walked on those city streets
  You get a taste of future wisdom as you flow down Deep Creek
  Go down
  Flow down
  Go down

  (1992)

COMMENTARY: Deep Creek is a national park reserve south of Adelaide that is quite rugged, remote, and spectacular. This song is about facing demons and doubts and how the unfamiliar world of the bush (for a city boy) can either assist or trigger that process. It deserves a good recording ....)