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)