Watch Me Disappear

This light doesn't hide in a bushel anymore,

But I don't know what you could use it for.

I've got the courage and I've got the same fear,

So gather round now and watch me disappear.

Been a smokey, been on fire,

I'm on terms with immolation,

Don't try to pull me from the pyre,

It's too late for liberation.

I wonder what I would've made of other features,

Given all my kinds of appetite.

Here my lords come claiming up their leases,

If I'm gonna move I got to travel light.

To the reaches, to the never never,

Anywhere where they can't find me,

I'm invisible, I'm in hiding, all my troubles are left behind me.

O my soul's a condiment, spread it far and wide,

Little taste on a lot of tongue, makes a body tired,

It's a little like dousing a burning flag with a pail of oily water -

I've studied brown and I've been known to gather wool,

I won't refuse a little piece of sky pie,

But when I see you with your beaker half full

I think I'm drinking with the wrong guy.

Should I fly a coop, will I swim the soup,

Will I make it through another year here?

I've been lonely before, on that broken shore,

There's no better place to up and disappear.

O my soul's a condiment, spread it far and wide,

Little taste on a lot of tongue, makes a body tired,

It's a little like dousing a burning flag with a pail of oily water -

Said the flaming puddle.

Daddys take it on the chin, there's no need to fight,

Mother's hem the brood and gather in, here comes the night,

You might step outside of the stream, fall through the hole,

Be far from all that living set you forth to do.

Xanadu now, Babylonia, anywhere where nobody owns ya,

An Elysian acre, Arcadia, it's alright to disappear yeah.

Pennywhistle

Just an ordinary day, I knew that autumn was on its way,

I could see by the gilt of the clouds, the burnish on the bay,

A ring of effusia settled on the city like a vision of the future

Before the scales fell away,

A vision of the future looking more than just okay,

A good feeling

Yes, just a good feeling

And it only happens now and then -

Out of the mouth of a black dog,

Out of the terrors of 3am,

Out of the dark and whispering fen,

I was blind then I could see, now I'm blind again.

So I hollered up to Jill,

"Come down from the mountain, your ears are 'a burning,

My speech is a fountain, it's been another long year

But you know I'm not counting,

I dreamed you like you dreamed me,

O the bomb dreamed the fuse and the drowner dreamed the sea",

What a strange feeling...

Yes, it’s a strange feeling

And it only happens now and then -

Out of the mouth of a black dog,

Out of the terrors of 3am,

Out of the dark and whispering fen,

I was blind then I could see, now I'm blind again.

Most of the Aegean Sea rushes into my bedroom and glitters for me,

The hills of Gallipoli all throw up their bones for my industry,

So I build from the charnel the ale house,

I build from the tomb a palace of dreams,

That old barren rockface got silver seams for a miner of middling means,

Singing poems of dissolution and schemes -

My penny whistles, lo!

Now I summon up Jack, sat up on the hill,

The wrong kind of music, the wrong kind of pill,

Impotent as a potato but still pleading "Give it up Mary,

But not by degrees..."

A portrait of Jack, a study in sin, well I knew of myself before I knew of him,

Now even I couldn't tell ya just who it is asking

"Give it up Mary, but not by degrees,

Give it up Mary, your virtue, please..."

Into the mouth of a black dog - I go

Into the terrors of 3am - I go

Into the dark and whispering fen - I go

I was blind then blind again

Into the mouth of a black dog - I go

Into the terrors of 3am - I go

Into the dark and whispering fen - I go

O what beast has my name on its snaggle tooth,

And eternal slobber for my finishing youth?

My penny whistles low.

Becoming Bryn

I dreamt I got a snakebite

Just a dream but upon waking up my head felt light

My arm felt tight

Where the serpent struck

A mark so faintly

There upon me

With very little warning the end

And if you think that I'm becoming the worst I can become

You've got another thing coming baby

I've a few tricks up my dirty white sleeve

Run run run run run

I see that you've got well made hands

You're well put together

You smell like apples

Taste like the sea

And in your nature

A full set of vigors

I have a vision of you ripely

Hanging from the tree

Swinging in the orchard breeze

And though nobody wants a part of the ritual

You could at least keep me an honest vigil

And if you see me rising up through the floor

With unblinking eyes

Run run run run run

I lie awake tonight

It's weight upon my chest

Smell of the well

Upon the unwell

Voice from the dark water

I don't recognise it

There's a thing that I must do

A question I should ask

Who are you, why do you come for me?

O nobody wants a part of the ritual

You could at least keep me an honest vigil

And if you see me coming out the door

With a bloody hand

Run run run run run

And if you see me rising up through the floor

With unblinking eyes

Run run run run run

City of Rescue

Shining city on the plain,

No more sorrow, no more pain,

City of Rescue I don't know,

Is that where all good people go?

If that's where all good people go,

Leave me here I tell you no,

All good people in one place?

Nary there an honest face.

The seer and the imbecile there in the garden meet,

What comes about as they nut it out there in the bower seat,

One of them picks the others brain, the other picks his feet,

The city enters into night, the day is fleet.

Well I already know how to walk the line,

I already know how to read the signs,

I've been in the business of pleasing somebody all of the fucking time,

So now I'm gonna run.

Wealthy city by the sea,

Got no room for people like me,

Can't see half what they can see,

City of Rescue by the

Semen and ovum there in the oven meet,

What comes about I have my doubt in that infernal heat,

It's not a billionth miracle that's brought up to the teat

If it's sucking for the rest of its life and never free.

All alone outside of the city,

I don't even have it now,

With the burning rain of someone's pity

Pattering on my brow.

It's a long, long way to Rescue,

I didn't say goodbye to you,

Or make an empty gesture too,

Though many people showed me how

Well I already know how to walk the line,

I already know how to read the sign,

I've been in the business of pleasing somebody all of the fucking time,

So now I'm gonna run.

I don't know what I've been told

I don't care what I've been told.

Farmer’s Son

I didn't know you, I never knew you,

Now I'm never gonna see you again.

An acquaintance all my childhood years

I could never call you a friend.

I was afraid that I might become you,

I was afraid you might appear

As a weight upon my chest at night

And a whisper in my ear.

O the watershed I built

And wept enough that I could fill it,

So the ground beneath my feet would yield

Enough that I could heal it.

I'm gonna get it back, gonna get better,

Gonna get it fixed, gonna burn that letter,

I don't know what's coming but I'll take it,

Whatever now.

For I was born to another vocation,

I was born in another era,

I wasn't born that I should live my life

Beneath your failure and fear.

Every night the storm grew closer,

Every day the fire drew near,

When they'd meet upon this acre

And I prayed it'd up and disappear.

O the watershed I built

And wept enough that I could fill it,

So the ground beneath my feet would yield

Enough that I could heal it.

I'm gonna get it back, gonna get better,

Gonna get it fixed, gonna burn that letter,

I don't know what's coming but I'll take it,

Whatever now.

You didn't know it, you didn't see me,

As you went about your work.

I was hiding in the pantry,

I was practicing the shirk.

By the time my shoulders straightened up

And my hands were strong enough,

You couldn't lift an arm against her,

You were too ill for that kind of stuff.

O the watershed I built

And wept enough that I could fill it,

So the ground beneath my feet would yield

Enough that I could heal it.

Women don't see it when they're with the wrong fella,

Women don't see it cos you know they don't wanna

Women don't see it when they're with the wrong fella,

Women don't see it cos you know they don't wanna,

I could see it coming but I know

It doesn't matter now.

Mugged by the Mob

Strange paradise that you're living in,

Strangers talk to you in hissing tongues, fictioning.

I've gone inside some, you don't see me none,

I don't speak with the fear you secretly like to hear.

You get stuck out past the toll chains

And your heart begins its boiling in the cavern

Of your missing shame,

You hear those flapping buds?

You got your values plucked.

Know it's the end of conviction.

You see them walk the streets in packs

Like so many chimpanzees,

Those mental amputees,

No culture only liberties.

If I could wipe them out,

Like never born nor seen,

But it's always been this way,

But I think you know what I mean.

I'm willing to go now,

I'm ready to feel no pain,

Just a sharp red rip,

Then the lights go out on my trip,

One more death in the prison.

Hear the crows speak, know the crow's tongue,

Crows don't eat their own meat, they don't brook no carry on.

So they can speak their bit the Mob, but I can't cop that kind of gob,

Babble and spit the evening long, make a right out of being always wrong.

I'm willing to go now,

I'm ready to feel no pain,

Just a short, sharp rip,

Then the lights go out on my trip,

One more death in the prison.

O for the Mobility get what the Mobility seek,

Though not one of it knows what it means,

You paint it a picture its eyes roll back,

You sing it a song it screams.

O the demise of diction,

Know it's the end of conviction,

Just another death in the prison.

The Slant

Pity the boy in front of me

He was only 16,

Lifted up my axe then down,

Split his head like a cord of wood.

Not for me the huon pine,

Not for me the ankle iron,

A'resting in the rope'll do me fine.

So they sent me down to Bellerive,

Strung me up to my relief,

I was just a petty thief

Of no account, no import.

Send my love to my sister

In the Female Factory,

Remind her of the day when we drank wine.

May a slant of winter light

Break upon my stone before the night

Ushers in the chill,

I have no sight, I have no sight.

But did they pave the streets of Hobart town?

Lop the old wood forests down?

For the press of King and Crown,

For honey? Milk and honey?

My arse.

The Glenorchy Bunyip

A dragon with the head of a bulldog,

A mountain with a crop of white snow,

A blue sky over Glenorchy,

And I've got nowhere to go.

I didn't ask for your name little sister,

I didn't ask for you to come through the door.

I dreamed of a face, a curtain of lace,

An apple that had no core.

A tail with the girth of a fat man's thigh

Slid up around the corner and was burnt upon my eye,

A winter light confused my sight in Glenorchy tonight

When I thought that I had nothing to see.

So I asked the lady at 13,

Invalid at 32,

With a bottle of red, only fresh from bed,

By the letterbox.

She thinks she doesn't see

The things I think I see,

Blind by 11 and wearing her dead mother's socks.

Alright

I was hiding in the Swan Terrace garden,

I saw the to and fro-ing, come and going of the street,

There's not a lot of doing in Glenorchy of a Tuesday,

Shivering I accepted my defeat.

But as I rose up ginger I was arrested by a sight

That flickered in my periphery,

A reflection in a Hillman Hunter window,

I saw that the creature was me.

Now the heart of a monster is the heart of a child

Who never had to grow into a man -

If nobody could recognise the Bunyip of Glenorchy,

Then wherever there's a monster no-one can,

Then wherever there's a monster no-one can.

Dogsday

Lately the smoke from the burning bushes,

Has the eye and the mouth tasting ashes,

For the price we've the haze of Olympus,

Ambling by the Children's Farm,

Imitating the river's calm,

Liberated, the heart, from alarm

On this dog's day.

While it lasted the morning long,

Came the feeling of something wrong,

As you knew that it would before long,

A grave expectation,

So the hackles did raise some,

O it never stays under even on

A dog's day,

You start looking for targets for your arrows,

A bloody sheath for your eager blade,

Dark clouds for the sun to shroud

On this dog's day.

Hills become mountains, sheer cliffs beside,

Fickle elation meekly turns its tail, digs a hole and dies.

The shrill cries of battle from gamboling spawn,

Terriers come at a clip across the lawn,

The mothers' competitions, the fathers' stifled yawns

In this hazy picnic season, light beer and gentle treason.

Why would it give rise to an anger?

Could this city outdo its own languor

While tumbling bodies of children figure

As targets for your arrows,

Little marks for your seasoned eye,

Such a violence underlying this dog's day.

Why don't you dispense with your secrets,

Give your rambling blood a rest,

Let the world be kind to you on this dog's day.

Lupus

As the cold comes to claim up I take the air and know your pink aroma,

And I should haunt your very vestibules and hover like the smoke over Tecoma,

If I could dive my hands to the roots of your tallest trees,

And it was all I ever do...

Never feed from the hand, never beg, never stand on two feet.

I see your memory is starved and smell your history it doesn't raise an appetite,

I haze the rill up with my steam, the fishes scream, the lilies dream my eyes to black,

If I could sink my teeth into the dreams of ordinary people,

And it was all I ever do...

Never feed from the hand, never beg, never stand on two feet.

Now the fire's come to reap I've got to raise you from your sleep and speak the iron in my teeth and will,

I have a memory of soul, of trusted hand, of twining blood

I have my seat there on the step of the hill

If I could hitch my hind to the wagon of sighs you get around with,

And it was all I ever do...

Never feed from the hand, never beg, never stand on two feet.

The Devil in Me

There must have been a light in your eyes that you didn't see the devil in me,

When he was right there inside,

In my low company that I never made an effort to hide, or to get him behind.

That the surface don't quake when you see me in the grip of the vice,

That the earth doesn't shake shouldn't come as the biggest surprise,

Seeing blind love loans a clever disguise.

Another day in the dirt

Make you wonder will it ever come clean?

Well I'm not a machine.

But if we're gonna bury the hurt

Take your pick and your shovel and lean to the task sister, lean.

O how long will I go on about it though it profits me none?

But the day that I cease from my labor then the devil has won,

Until that day I won't be holding my tongue.

(What I wanted to say)

Is if the two of us, me and the devil, both can live in my skin,

And I can keep a close eye on him, then you know that the devil won't win,

As long as I keep on the light side of sin.

ITUNES BONUS TRACK:

The Good Ship Austria

No vessel finer

Designed in England

Built in China

They dropped a letter or two

When they went to sign her

She sails once a year to the deafening cheer

Of many million proud Austrians

She may not be as grand as a great ocean liner

But she’ll hold her own

And there’s no vessel finer

As a symbol out at sea

There’s no brighter bird than she

Like a peacock to a tiger’s eye, you’ll agree

Those other ships all lick their lips and come about

Of all the time I’ve been aboard this Good Ship Austria

Never thought of telling of the mistaken spelling of her name

Nor have I felt ashamed

Until the day she spoke that name

And proudly fanned the feathers round the flame

She sails once a year to the terrible cheer

Of many million cavalier Austrians

All lyrics by Glenn A Richards (Sony/ATV Music Publishing)