Black Crow Road

Moon Over Melbourne | listen

There's a moon
High over Melbourne
I've got my ticket, got my suitcase & my keys
There's a telephone & a deep blue horizon
& the telephone rings unanswered through the trees

I said, Goodbye
Goodbye Mister Winter
Won't you take your frosty feet away from my door?'
There are diamonds, diamonds on my windscreen
They're just teardrops of the sky, nothing more

Well I've always
Been a dreamer
I can't help it, I'm just waiting on the mail
& all my friends, they gather round to remind me
How sometimes I meet my obligations & sometimes I fail
Sometimes I fail

So I'm looking to the sky
For some inspiration
For a signal, for a portent, for a clue
I'm not looking for forgiveness or absolution
I'm just holding out for one more dance with you

& there's a moon
Sailing over Melbourne
& it's slipping like a coin into the sea
& I'm wishing
I'm wishing on the ocean
When the moonlight is on the water, hold on to me
Hold on to me
Hold on to me

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Voodoo Dreams | listen

I travelled down weird streets of prayer
In an American car with wire wheels
& white walls
Nico was in the car with her long blonde hair
& her chandelier
& this leather clad kid
with a bag of weirdness & save our city
& don't you hold out on our love don't

you hold out on our love
don't you hold out.

I've got a voodoo dream

Down Weird Streets of prayer
On horseless wheels of blind Detroit
I ride the rattling bones of sudden death
Crows fly between my eyes
& hammer at my window in fractured codes of silence
& the Shadow Gangs
with their black sombreros
& their hexes & their pals
& their mouth organ tunes come drifting into town
on the lonesome junkyard train

lonesome junkyard train
lonesome junkyard

Voodoo dream

I was not holy
With my secret jazz
& my jukebox & my face
I was going down swinging
& train from town to town
on the saxophone steel moon
& pass by boarded up windows of sad tunes
blind & forgotten
like whoís who?
where the rich kids play hobo
& always go home
& yes we jump the outward bound freight train
& ride the rattling bones
ride the rattling bones

ride the rattling
Voodoo dreams

Voodoo dreams & a rusting car
Voodoo dreams & a black guitar
Voodoo dreams, who do you love
Voodoo dream, weird streets of prayer

My eyes are a lost railroad
& my face is the wind & sandpaper schedule of trains
blown howling through skeleton weatherboard bones
& my sand blasted signal box scull stares out on broken rails
& my heart beats my sun bleached skin
drumming distant & spectral & holy
laughing in the early dawn
down weird streets of prayer

down weird streets of prayer
Iíve got a voodoo dream

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A Picture Of Phar Lap | listen

I was born in the small town of Corryong
It seems like a lifetime ago
My father he just loved me dearly
Gave up drinking when I was seven years old
& he used to like a bet on the horses
Just a dollar each way, win or lose
& he used to smoke too much tobacco
Well I guess it was his poison to choose

& I had a little cardboard Don Bradman
Scored runs off an old ping-pong ball
& I was brought up to remember the soldiers
From the First & the Second World War
& it's funny to think of a whole generation
Their savings in an old coffee tin
Sincerely believing that their circumstances could alter
If a racehorse came in

I've got a picture of Phar Lap
It hangs on my wall
& it keeps all my troubles away
It was cut from a magazine by my grandfather
& it keeps me from waking up shaken up
& slipping away

My father's name is Frank Griffin
He's gone twenty years now & he's buried in Carlton
I don't go up there as a rule
I prefer to remember him rolling a cigarette
& showing me how to cut wood
It's fair to say most people loved him that knew him
& he died much too young & it's sad
To think that he never saw Bob Menzies' funeral
Or Collingwood win the 1990 flag

Sometimes I take a train to Wodonga
Hear his voice in the wheels on the rail
Saying, 'Jamie, it's a hungry old country
Out here where the gold rushes failed
& sometimes of a Sunday me & Kate & the kids
Get a tram to the Melbourne museum
& we stand there & look at that great big red gelding
& we wonder at the spirit revealed

I've got a picture of Phar Lap
It hangs on my wall
& it keeps all my troubles away
It was cut from a magazine by my grandfather
& it keeps me from waking up shaken up
& slipping away

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Sacred Things | listen

I've been all the way up river
with a monkey on my back
A tin of coins & a twelve-string in my arms
& the things that seem most sacred
are the things that never last
& a broken heart is just a false alarm

Sacred things
Sacred things
Sacred things that you keep
Somewhere between your ribcage & your spine
Sacred things that whisper just before you sleep
& they carry you
as round this world you go

She put one hand on my shoulder
& the other hand to my cheek
Said, 'Of course there's something sacred in a kiss'
On the broken railway platform
At the end of the working week
Somebody's CD walkman sings, 'You must remember this ..'

Sacred things
Sacred things
Sacred things that you keep
Somewhere between your ribcage & your spine
Sacred things that whisper just before you sleep
It's a wicked world
but on & on we go

From phone boxes on the highway
I could feel your heart in mine
As I called you up from all those little towns
Somewhere south of Sydney
Gone west of a previous life
But you're with me now
& arm in arm we go

Sacred things
Sacred things
Sacred things that you keep
Somewhere between your ribcage & your spine
Sacred things that whisper just before you sleep
It's a wicked world
but round & round we go
& you're with me now
as arm in arm we go

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The Days Of Muhammad Ali | listen

There's a devil in the graveyard
On the silent midnight wind
Tombstone angel riders ride the ruined road again
Banshee visions dog my days
They haunt me like a curse
& so it is that paradise goes from bad to worse

Flowers for the filthy rich
Sunglasses for the free
Nobody ever would have dreamed of this
In the days of Muhammad Ali

She had Karma Sutra poses
Tattooed up & down her spine
& a candle lit to a silver spoon since 1979
Her tombstone eyes
The cold wind cries
Around her hollow face
& so it is that paradise is robbed of her embrace

Flowers for the filthy rich
Sunglasses for the free
Nobody ever would have died like this
In the days of Muhammad Ali

I don 't want to believe
That the cocaine trail is where your money grows
& meanwhile, south of Panama, they 're getting beaten up with a rubber hose
Nobody ever would have fell for this
In the days of Muhammad Ali
& so it is that paradise make s me want to leave

I 'm giving you my haunted heart
As I descend the hill
These visions stood before me there
They stand before me still
Way out in the wilderness
The bells of freedom chime
& so it is in paradise you get so lost sometimes

Flowers for the filthy rich
Sunglasses for the free
Nobody ever would have told you this
In the days of Muhammad Ali

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Black Crow Road | listen

I don't know how it happened

I was travelling light
I was blinded on the freeway
Slipping in & out of the car headlights
The moon & the ocean
They were begging me to drown
I was thinking about perpetual motion
I was thinking about heading back to town

But I was already on the crow road
It's true to say I know that now
On the black crow road
Where the dead & the living still connect somehow

I don't know how to explain this now
It was just a little dancing sideways step
I opened my eyes to a hard blue sky
& my childhood self in the driver's seat
Familiar fingers on the steering wheel
Like weathered branches or my father's hands
Skeleton trees on a cold sky
& out across the paddocks there's a windmill going round & round & round

On the crow road

I dream myself hitch-hiking still On the black crow road
Driving in the shadow of the burial hill

& when I say I was travelling light
I mean I was a prisoner of my own flight
The muse & the beloved of my own song
The life's work of my imagination

But on the crow road
There is no time for self-regard
On the black crow road
Our little life is dust among the stars

It's easy to see where the metaphor lies
In a black clad bird's unblinking eye
Far too cunning for the trap or the gun
& they call them a murder when there's more than one

Some of us believe that the dead travel with us
Some of us do not believe
They give no warning, they do not tell us
Leave us wondering how to grieve

We can't understand when the living leave us
Those who cannot carry on
We offer the future but they don't believe us
& the past is a reminder that they've lived too long

On the crow road
Three undertakers on the telephone line
On the black crow road
The dirt road of silences & signs

What kind of Pilgrim's progress
Could leave man so low?
What kind of acquiescence
Sets us apart along this stony road?

Hand us down that slide guitar'
Sing the crows and the bones
'Who will tell the mysteries here
Who will sing the ashes home?'

There's a heart of stone in the history here
We do not care for the suffering soul
'& what has become of the beautiful boy
The gifted boy from years ago?'
He left us here when he'd lived too long
& all I can offer is this inadequate song

On the crow road
I can hear the bottleneck slide
On the black crow road
Drifting down the darkening sky
Drifting down the sheltering sky

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No Requiem For The Shadow Gang | listen

There's sign on the door saying, 'stripper at four'
& the Shadow Gang ain't around no more
I can't drink here, I can't stand the pain

There's a cowboy junky & the sailors call
Dancing with a dolly where the shadows fall
Heaven is a one way ticket on a southbound train

& the girls are all blonde & they look like you
The girls are all blonde & they look like you
Talk about a man with a rose tattoo
You can kiss him in the corner
You can kill him too
But we're the Shadow Gang
& we don't die for you

There's a fist & a face & a bloodshot moon
& a honeymoon bottle & a two-bit tune
& the black out waits and the ships are all at sea

There's a moon in the gutter & a telephone dial
& the Shadow Gang, we go out in style
& the kerosene lantern burns on the Circular Quay

& the girls are all blonde & they look like you
The girls are all blonde & they look like you
Talk about a man with a rose tattoo
You can kiss him in the corner
You can kill him too
But we're the Shadow Gang
& we don't die for you

When I die my head will roll
Like a dollar in the gutter to save my soul
& the railroad pony is dancing in the skeleton rain

Thank you for the money & the vodka & the gin
Thank you for the bottle & the mandolin
Thank you for the pain of being born again
In the red light quarter of the vanishing overnight train

& the girls are all blonde & they look like you..

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She Believes In Elvis | listen

He used to sing Love Me Tender
In the one-horse-town hotel
On Saturday nights when he wasn't driving interstate
Now he's ten years overdue
& the hotel is closing too
But she still thinks of him as just a little bit late

Way out yonder in the back of the dusty back roads
Where the rain never falls
& the children play in the wheel ruts & stones
& the lights coming over the hill
They're blinding him still
& the stars burn out & chill you to the bone

But what can I tell you except she believes in Elvis
& on the mantelpiece his photograph grows more like the King each day
She will comfort you
Like the saints in the prayer book used to do
She will pray for you & never fade away

The young men from the valleys
& the little towns and farms
Come calling & they're hoping
Of course

But what can she possibly say
To boys like this on their wedding day
Who've been nowhere & done nothing
More or less

& what can I tell you except she believes in Elvis
& on the mantelpiece his photograph grows more like the King each day
She will comfort you
Like the saints in the prayer book used to do
& pray for you & never fade away

She knows the shape and feel of loss
& the taste of a prayer to a difficult god
& the painful re-creation
Of the soul re-made in stone

Where smoke & lightning congregate
& the blackened skyline hollows you
She's the mistress of her own rebirth
& her breathing heart is in you

So she walks you to your vehicle
In the dry grass by the temporal gate
Should she be some shrine on the highway side
Or touch your face in the dashboard light & leave you
Mysteriously renewed

. & leave you mysteriously renewed

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Suburbs Of The Heart | listen

Falling out of aircraft
On compulsory swimming pools
Geometric shopping centres
Mums & Dads & schools
This is where it happens
There is no second start
Existence from a distance
In the suburbs of the heart

Where re-runs follow re-runs
& relations reappear
Crawling from the wreckage
Of a thousand packaged tours
& dogs bite & neighbours fight
& rumours stop & start
& nature strips are poisoned
In the suburbs of the heart

Where supermarket complexes
Make interesting friends
& weddings follow funerals
Follow the long weekend
& taxis cruise the avenues
& parties never start
& private fears are souvenired
In the suburbs of the heart

Where the check out girls used to check you out
& leave you in the dark
In the back seat at the drive-in
Where the P-plate drivers used to park
Reconstructing love affairs
You wonder, 'is this art?'
& it's pornographic postcards
From the suburbs of the heart

Where no one is making money
Well at least no one I've met
I used to think it funny
When I was drinking to forget
& No-one gives a flying fuck
What time the future starts
In one armed bandit boulevards
In the suburbs of the heart

Where heroes never fail you
Where heroes don't exist
& days go by like husbands
with an absent minded kiss
& the hostess with the mostest
Who is too polite by far
Kills the conversation
In the suburbs of the heart

& the phantom FJ Holdens
Cruise the freeway & the dance
Like Elvis Presley monuments
To a Rock & Roll romance
& no one plays the jukebox
Records never chart
& the last twin-carbied Falcon
Drives away from the suburbs of the heart

Cradled in the loving grace
Of every known appliance
Permanent amnesia
Is a form of self-reliance
We wait for things to happen
Relations fall apart
Existence from a distance
In the suburbs of the heart

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Wierd Streets Of Prayer | listen

The nightmare boys with the gasoline
The cigarette lighter & the smoke machine
Kings of metal & the kings of speed
Kings of the strychnine lsd
Running blind in the promised land
Hand in hand with the right hand man
Come on baby don't you be no square
Take a little walk down streets of prayer
Down weird streets of prayer

Living it down, living in sin
Drinking from a bottle of Bombay gin
Drowning in the fever, never get saved
Dancing on the table top, dancing on the grave
Breaking into hotels, breaking my voice
Going downtown to see the Dum Dum Boys
Come on baby don't you be no square
Take a little walk down streets of prayer
Down weird streets of prayer

Talking in your sleep walk, sleeping at the wheel
Walking on the water in your high high heels
Working on walking like a Cadillac car
Stepping like a razor in the waterfront bar
Call my number, call my name
Walk like a wedding but no one came
Come on baby don't you be no square
Take a little walk down streets of prayer
Down weird streets of prayer

Washed in the water-wheel, prayer-wheel face
In the gasoline alley in the paradise place
Walking in the body of the pouring rain
Smuggled into town on the junkyard train
Safe as houses, beware, beware
The kings of nothing are the kings down there
Come on baby don't you be no square
Take a little walk down streets of prayer
Down weird streets of prayer

Come on baby don't you be no square
Take a little walk
I said who knows where.