Moo, You Bloody Choir
Album - 13 febbraio 2006 - Debaser id 315340

Now should you expect to see something that you hadn't seen
In somebody you've known since you were sixteen
If love is a bolt from the blue
Then what is a bolt but a glorified screw
And that doesn't hold nothing together.

Far from these nonsense bars and their nowhere music
It's making me sick and I know it's making you sick
There's nothing there it's like eating air
It's like drinking gin with nothing else in
And that doesn't hold me together...

And for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room
I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin.

Now I know you like your boys who take their medicine from the bowl of a silver spoon
Who run away with the dish and scale the fish by the silvery light of the moon
Who were taught from the womb to believe till the tomb that as far as their bleeding eyes see
Is a pleasure pen meant for them, builded and rent for them, not for the likes of me
No not for the likes of you and me...

And for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room
I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin.

O but the green-eyed harpy of the salt land
She takes into hers my hand
And she says "Boy, I know you're lying... O but then so am I!"
And to this I said
"O well."

Well put me in a cage full of lions I'll learn to speak lion, in fact I know the language well
I picked it up while I was versing myself in the languages they speak in hell
That night that silence gave birth to a baby
But they took it away to her silent dismay and they raised it to be a lady...
Now she can't keep her mouth shut...

And for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room
I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin.

And for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room
I played a few songs for those bumps in the night, in fact I played this very tune
But you said "What is this six stringed instrument but an adolescent loom?"
And one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin.
And one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin.
And one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin.

O how my great liberal heart labours,
With the piss in my rivers and gall,
Before gleaming ceremonial sabres,
Who falls on them falls for us all...

Every night I pick the locks
On that white Victorian box,
Every night I pick the locks and the gaolers say...

Some nights when I look through her window,
And she seems an old lover to me,
There peeling off her black nylon knee highs
And yielding her breast to the sea...

Every night I pick the locks
On that white Victorian box,
But there's nobody home in her telephone bones.

I've kissed the green gem of the east coast, drunk the tropical fizz of
the north,
Played the far flung sand castles ate at by the Indian,
Froze in the broken off port,
To my blue collar sprawl out the blue stony wall,
Where the weather don't bother and the sea don't recall,
Sometimes it's a dead man as wide as he's tall by a blue blooded matron, and under her shawl

Every night I pick the locks on that white Victorian box...
I find buttons and bones, tiny soldiers, toy trains and murder...
Every night I pick the locks and the ladies scream "Vain!!"

There's a place I've been told, and when I grow old I may go there,
I've been told that my family's bones may lie under the snow there,
And with my little bag, and with my little dog,
Who sleeps on my chest when he can't find a hole in a log,
And when I go, my dog will know to leave his old fellow and find a new pillow, far from the chill of the cold acre.

Now there's a Hillydale here and a Lilydale there where there's joy in the living, in voices that ring in the air

I'd stay there but sooner or later I'd have to go, where I don't know,
but when a dog knows it's on him he doesn't ask why he just goes,
And when I go my bones will know, to pick up and follow the wagon that rolls on the cold acre...

My heart is a cold acre, in my chest is a cold acre,
I don't grow any good anymore though I've seeded my soul with
all kinds of love, that it aches so...

Though I wake from them mouthing they leave me not able to talk,
These dreams are not nightmares but realms I've been choosing to walk,
With my little bag, and with my little dog,
Who rests on my stomach and barks at the oncoming fog,
O but when I go, with my lot in tow,
Like a vampire carry my piece of the earth to the place of my death from the plots of my birth...

My heart is a cold acre, in my chest is a cold acre,
I know any good anymore from the bad except there's one that you have and one that you had,
O grow, grow, grow, grow, grow,
And plant me in the only place I know,
That's the Cold Acre.

Some go high and very low, none too different or the same you know, I know cos I've seen them come and go.
When summer comes the valley hums with medicine trucks on
the sidewalks, laid out those hands could be holy...

Stranger, stranger, hard earned familiar,
I've got no jokes,
And you hit me up for more than just my shrapnel and smokes.

Some go high and very low, no two different or the same you know,
I know cos I've seen them come and go...

Stranger, stranger, strange you should be listening like a river to
the end of my curdled song,
Nobody knows what madness could come along.
Now if you see a being borne into a trap you free it,
They know kindness when they see it,
Stranger Strange would it come if you could call it?

Some go high and very low, none too different or the same you know, I know cos I?ve seen them come and go.

It's quiet now, the streets are silent,
When music out of the arms of community flies...

Stranger Strange I knew I knew you,
Now the bug lights in the bank imbue you
With eyes like decals and a voice like an iron file.
Stranger strange, though the earth be an anvil,
I'm not waiting for the hammer to fall,
I'm not waiting for anything at all.

Well versed I am in the taint of my birth, my diminishing role in this
sphere, But sometimes I require a communiqué from the Mother to
make it clear,
Well England is pretty in the summer time, boys are beautiful till
the age of nine, and certainly women begin to pine for usurping their
leaden fear,

But after making love we hear nothing Mother Greer.

Tiptoe, tiptoe with me...

O no tiptoe of tiny feet may sound or tiny heartbeat pound in our ears, waking up with the sweats and the terrors like some fifty five year old corporateer,
Who after making love he hears nothing Mother Greer,
Yes after making love we hear nothing Mother Greer.

Rise, rise, rise and tune your pianos, I hear the wind whistle through
their teeth, you cheating sons from your deep, your dreamless, endless, arse-facing, walking sleep...
(you cheating sons of deceit while I'm breaking melodies every time I breathe...)

After making love we hear nothing Mother Greer,
Why are there so many of you over there when you can't even
get over here?
After making tracks we hear nothing Mother Greer.

This honey month I'm telling you don't go turning your radio on,
A one and a two, should I talk to you, like the others do?

Get yr knees up beneath the bar,
I'm leaving now but I won't go far...

This honey month I'm telling you don't go turning your radio on,
And this honey month, with the wine on your breath, and singing the same stolen song,
I want you to know,
I want you to know,
What you don't want to know.

Beneath the revving of a car,
The evensong of the abattoir...

Moo, you bloody choir,
Moo and lo, lo and moan.
Moo, you huddled choir,
Moo and lo,
How the night arrives with a blow.

This honey month I'm telling you don't go turning your radio on,
And this honey month, already married enough, and wondering where it went wrong,
I'll make you come,
I'll make you go,
I'll make you come apart again.

At ten o'clock is when I rise from my grave, and cast my eyes over the ideas that I couldn't save, become regret and break upon me now wave after wave, bid me remember what I done.

A strange appeal is in the magazine zodiac, what inspiration are the
women of the dog track, now there's a wheel and there's a well and there's a big rack, the perfumed killers from the north, collect each Saturday to brood and sally forth...

I don't know enough to know not to show it
Or tell it like I know more,
I'm sorry darling but your roving poet's just a bank balance troubadour, who can't sing the song anymore.

At ten o'clock is when you open up your apple eyes, and drink a cup into the one of earth the other skies, and out your mouth a tiny burst of tiny baby cries "O where o where o where did you get into to?"
A strange appeal unto a pocket where a body lay, I saw a dream of
such a couple only yesterday, when the one did leave the other went to war Enola Gay, she had a halo, was a heroine, she had a halo, was a heroine...

Well I know I'm not loathe to show it, I smile like a bandsaw, I'm sorry baby but your roving poet's just a footloose man-whore, who
can't talk the talk anymore..

We're just passing through

At ten o'clock is when I rise from my grave, and cast my eyes over the ideas that I couldn't save, become regret and break upon me now wave after wave, bid me remember what I done.

When time doesn't tear you pay a fee to make it rip, the ditch witch, the back hoe, the bobcat, the tip, soil from the hillock spilling over on that solemn lip, it covers up the cedar mirror, do you ever see your
weakness any clearer?

We were winding up the road to the site with the windows down and
the cigarettes alight, singing some rubbish about "my soul's alright",
I didn't know what I could do...
It's just you and I and some other guy forever passing through?

We're just passing through

Like a: (gall stone)
(rat through a snake)
(little rubbish through a rake)

We're just passing through.

Here on the hill above the settlement, the buildings are talking,
A tower to a terrace says the word's on the street, the dead are walking...

The brows are arched of the mews across the street,
By a pale ochre light are made out heavy reliefs,
Where all your dreams are borrowed all your senses are thieves,
And Ned Kelly won't ride past your window despite the freeze on your disbelief,

Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down,
Thin Captain Crackers bowling naked through the centre of the town,
The sun won't bake his blue skin brown, he's been too long underground.

"I see," said a blind builder to his deaf daughter as he picked up his hammer and saw, "if blood is thicker than water why'd you dress in the dress that you wore?"

The blind are drawn by a blank curiosity
(Don't bring 'em up...),
Drawn on mirrors where windows used to be (if you can't put 'em down),

Some people might say "My desire's not the captain of me!"
And Red Barry might fly from his pedestal at night to spook the
university...

chorus

O tailor my bones what need new clothes but the lower half loves
what the upper half loathes, I could get around like an intellectual I
suppose, wearing the highs with the lows,
But I'd sooner sing these doleful drones by barcoo dog and
lagerphones, but my hand don?t write when a feather it holds, it hangs like a wren with its neck wrung, as did the bells in my quasi commode where I have to shift my head to see where my pillow go?d, some mornings I wake up by the side of the road,
Bringing it up for the gutter,
After putting it down for the crowd?

I said I would arrive in the capital?
After chuckin' outside the St. Augustines purple parish hall?
Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down,
And you know I can't.

Your issue may walk among fine moral spires
But if they went up somebody else built them
Your store is a small one, your goods have no buyers
Your parents are raising your children.
O I could have told you the vices won't hold you warm in a coil where you lay
But high up they hang you, seized by the temple
And bid you obey and obey...

A heinous, heinous law
Of an endless, endless love
That governs your poor heart

In its velvety chambers, where fellows foul met
Engage in exchanges
Whose ends are to put out your lights
Who know from the inside you'd put up a fight

To a heinous, heinous law...

It's winter in my bedroom and I stir the broken spring
And I have in my head to go crawling
When the hounds come around I go to the bottle
Like every wet shadow before me.
Now are you angry at me 'cos I'm no longer free?
I don't sound it or say it or feel it.
But out on the street somebody told me
It happens to everyone.
So I don't blame you, it's my foot in my shoe
And I seem to have easily filled it
While the thing in my charge, whether tiny or large
I fear I may slowly have killed it

Obeying a heinous, heinous law...

You can't walk through the Isle of the Dead, you can't lie still in the
Guest house bed, there's a pair of black eyes staring down at you from the mountain top, through yr window
The bunks are empty, your mates are gone, breakfast lasts an hour long, O warm bread, drawn tea, the bastards'll never get to me...

But somebody knows, somebody knows, somebody always
Knows
Where a body goes

I were one of two, we were joined at the shoe when we thought to make our break, so we shimmied our locks and we knocked up a box and we rode the thing down the waterway
Now the Derwent twists and the Derwent slides, It's a moving thing
With many eyes, O who'd have thought, at all or often, that vehicle would become our coffin?

So many souls, so many souls, so many souls in the water...
I left me a little daughter, and I left me a girl, and I left them alone, in that tired old world, O where are they now?

I am one of a gang set to work on the land, a clearin' and fellin'
And killin'
The best of us here has a conscience clear and he goes about it keen
And willin'
We're shooting them from the rocks, and we're shooting them in the water and when they're runnin' we're shootin' them in the backs and we do it without a thought or care?

So many lies, so many lies, so many lies been told...
We'll none of us here grow old...
Not gracefully, not peacefully, in this blind old land, in this dreaming land, some demon's land

Duty, who's your master?
Who gave you fingers?
Who gave you to me?
And why do we always dream of disaster
When we pay our dues to disaster with some loyalty?
And when its work is done, and we ought to just pick up and run, we
sleep in the place we have slept for so long...

So long, for so long, so long in the place we should run from.

And when I, when I have forgotten, when I have forgotten me how to
stand and sing,
I will raise up, raise one finger, one finger of the truth that wears no
ring,
And when its work is done, and the stitch of my smile has come
undone, I'll tell you why I wore it for so long...

And I wasn't so drunk that I didn't hear you dreaming,
All seized up and wretched and baying blue hell at the ceiling of the room we're always dying to leave.. alright.


Duty, who's your master?
Who gave you fingers?
Who gave you to me?
And why are we always dreaming of disaster
When we live our lives so careless and so comfortably?
O but underneath this song, I can hear another song, it tells me I'm
not wrong to stay so long...

And I wasn't so drunk that I didn't hear you dreaming.

Blind to the charms of the Toecutter Arms,
My labor to the east by knit and by darn,
Looking for the world like a whelp at sea, the discoverer's cottage had a light on for me,
I would lie on the porch and let the penny drop easy

Duly, duly disabled, truly, truly lost.

When I woke up it was dark,
Lying on my side in the Parliament park,
Puking up my pay in the gerbera bed,
I could see the Premiers talking, hear the husbands in the garden stalking, Looking for rough love

Duly, duly disabled, truly, truly lost,
Beneath the coverlet, beneath the blanket of the morn.

On my Exford legs, on my Exford walk,
Bury my brains in my Exford talk,
Til there's nothing I wouldn't do
To be sitting and talking with you.

It's too hot babe, pull the covers back,
Don't touch me babe, I don't remember ever liking that,
Don't touch me babe, roll over.

O brother, you don't know what you've got, only time flies...

You've gotta do some clockwork.

Sometimes you hear the broken bell sound up on the whore's hill,
The ladies clamor for the Salvo's sale, bickering like little girls
For second hand womens' things, for countless prying mans' hands.

O working girl, you don't get round enough, it's like yr daddy says...

You gotta do some clockwork.

(in a berth of the port wharf the song of the penitent sailor... upon
what stage? A slab in the gut of a Japanese whaler... a material blue
and tailored and time is a tailor... both brief and slow.)

Now I can hear the broken bell,
Now I can hear the clockwork,
It has me reaching for the hidden rail,
It has me listening for the song bird,
But I hear it very minor,
But I hear it very minor...

O singer, I don't believe your song, or your lying lines,
O singer, I don't believe your song, or your lying lines...

You've gotta do some clockwork:

The Pneuma, Cecilian, the Metzler, Angelus, Virtuos, Apollo, Paragon, Minerva, Stella

Clockwork, all clockwork.

O but I didn't write this song with a machine,
And I don't know how to stop it from its accidental purpose.

Autumn leaves are flying, (each a baby's brittle boat),
The season's dying, (winter's mottled pigeon throat),

Sings the coo-cool air.

The old sun's pale and rising, (write it down in yr little note),
He's pale and rising, (fold it up yr little note),

Waning, pale in the air.

Autumn leaves are flying, (time to find yr winter coat),
To cease from crying...

Sing instead my little Vernoona.