Even-Handed Agitprop

What better subject for a brand new song than Australia’s recent spectacular success with asylum seekers? It’s been a triumph, obviously, but I did a little research, and found there’s a rich, happy history to all this success.

PS You can tell it’s a brand new song, because the lyrics are propped in front of me. I almost never allow that.

PPS Recorded last Friday, September 26, at Eastern Riverina Arts, where they host occasional, tiny “office gigs”.

Southern Hemisphere Love

Many years ago, I started writing a song.

It’s a song about how love is not, as songwriters would have you believe, a purely above-the-equator pursuit (“the lusty month of May”, “as cold as Christmas”, “the leaves of brown came tumbling down, remember, that September in the rain”, “Summer, you old Indian summer, you’re the tear that comes after June-time’s laughter” etc. etc.)

Last week, I finished it:

 

And by “finished it”, I mean I did up a nice shiny piano-vocal chart too. It’s here.

Feeling the Feels

Last New Year’s Eve, the family visited a local community event, where a fairly adept wind ensemble played many nice tunes, including “I See the Light”, from Tangled. I have complained about the impossible blandness of this song in the past.

Then it occurred to me that, with a little effort, one might craft a Disney lovers’ ballad so generic, so bereft of identifying features, that it might thenceforth serve as a suitable ballad in every Disney film yet to be made.

So here it is. You’re welcome, songwriters.

What’s that? You’d like a piano/vocal chart, complete with boy/girl harmonies? Oh, alright.

New Song: I Am Sick to Death of Hearing About the Weimar Republic

A fairly self-explanatory title, with a song to match. Warning: it contains one F-bomb, used as an intransitive verb.

 

Thanks to @spikelynch for rhyming “poets and whores” with “between the wars”. Once I accidentally rhymed this further with “metaphors”, I had to steal it.

If anyone is too young to find the Weimar Republic thing utterly cliched and trite, give yourself about three years.

A Quick Word Before I Tease Some Fundamentalist Christians

Now, before anyone gets offended, let me make one thing clear:

The religion I’m mocking is homophobic, misogynist, theologically ignorant and intellectually dishonest.

If that does not describe your religion then I’m not having a go at your religion.

On the other hand, if that is your religion, well then yeah, I’m mocking it.

As Bill Hicks once said, “So? Forgive me.”

My Fundy Christian Girl

She likes to sing,
Yes she does.
She likes to dance
All night long.
She likes to paint,
You can tell
From her bedroom walls depictin’ single mothers
Burning in Hell.

Wuh-uh-oh-oo-oo-Hoah
She’s my fundy Christian girl
(Repeat)

She likes to read
Just one Book.
She likes to hold
Just one view.
She helps the poor
When she can
Thank the Lord their misery is part of His
Divine lovin’ plan.

Wuh-uh-oh-oo-oo-Hoah
She’s my fundy Christian girl
(Repeat)

God says we gotta wait ’til we’re married.
We wait Monday to Friday and then
We do it like bunnies on the weekend,
Get forgiven and the cycle starts all over again.

My friends say that I must be crazy,
How can I stand to be so good?
And then she does all my cooking and my cleaning
Like her fundy book says a fundy woman should.

Wuh-uh-oh-oo-oo-Hoah
She’s my fundy Christian girl
(Repeat)

And maybe every band she loves
Can’t play for shit or write a decent tune.
Still, I will love her ’til the end of time,
Which she promises is coming soo – oo – ooon,

She’s my fundamental, tub-thumping,
Homophobic, pick and choosing,
Literal interpreter of laws

She’s very, very big on family,
When she says save the family
She means save her family
From yours …

Wuh-uh-oh-oo-oo-Hoah
She’s my fundy Christian girl
(Repeat, etc.)

My Song For The Royal Wedding

I don’t want you to think this song happened because I think Australia’s Head of State should be an Australian.

No, I’d feel sorry for the royal couple, and bemused by the hysterical coverage of their wedding, even if I were a fervent loyalist.

Hence this rueful number, in the style of early Elton John:

Look At Us

Look at us, a modern couple.
A Windsor man, and you so normal.
We keep things semi-formal at our place,
Or at least we try.
I’m just some guy
Mucking in with a girl nine-tenths as privileged as I.

And do I love you?
Yes, of course I do.
Like any man, I stand here, proud,
And pledge this love before the crowd,
To you, the intersection of what I want with what I’m allowed.

And am I happy?
Look, the future shines
With throne and church and suits for free,
And stamps and coins that look like me,
As happy as a doomed and a dying institution can be.

Look at us, we’ll raise our children,
Pay tax and keep grace under pressure,
We smile like cats from Cheshire at the rude
stuff that people say,
And we’ll be praised.
Just for doing the things a thousand couples do each day.

Is there a downside?
Oh, my word indeed:
When every blemish on your skin
Becomes your family’s mortal sin,
Reflect that you could choose, and you knew what you were getting going in.

For England needs us.
And what does it say?
How sad and lonely must the people be
To trot out every useless Earl?
What anguish makes them want to see
This mindless social whirl?
How deep must the feelings of inadequacy go
For them to elevate us so?

Look at us, a modern couple.
Look at us.
Look at all this fuss.

Look at us.

This Is How Sunday Mornings Are At My Place

A brief look at highlights in the Sunday morning song canon:

Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down is about being miserable and hungover.

The Velvet Underground’s Sunday Morning is a gentle gripe about the world not leaving you alone to be stoned.  But hey, it’s nothing, man.

The Commodores’ Easy is about leaving a lousy girlfriend, and its Sunday morning is figurative (“easy like Sunday morning”).

U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday is about a massacre that occurred late on a Sunday afternoon, so it’s probably, strictly, a Monday morning song (“I can’t believe the news today”).

No Doubt’s On Sunday Morning is about a breakup recollected, as it were, in tranquillity.

Maroon 5’s Sunday Morning is about having a nice lie-in with your loved one.

Joe Jackson’s Sunday Papers is about the joys of tabloid gossip, and it counts, I think, because its papers are delivered through the door.  That traditionally happens in the morning.

None of these are about my Sunday mornings.  This is my Sunday morning:

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning.
It’s 6am and there’s a lawn to mow –
No, wait, it’s raining.
School uniforms
Will need to be dried
Inside today.

Kids, whose coat is this?
Well, who on earth is Jack?
We’re out of milk, and
I could use the UHT, but
Why have coffee just to make it taste like – ?

Shit, that birthday party,
When does it? – ah, not ’til 10 –
We’ll need to buy a present and a card,
We’ll get the gift bag that kid gave to us
And give it back to him again,
On Sunday morning.

What’s that outside?
Is that a dog?  That’s not the neighbour’s dog.
No, I don’t know why
The remote’s not working.
Try blowing on the batteries,
I’ll go get milk.

The servo should be open,
No, the chemist’s will still be closed
On Sunday morning,
How the driveway floods these days.
Cement would cost a thousand, fifteen hundred, maybe more, and
The same again for the garage door,

It’s time to trim the plum tree
Before it fruits all over Sonia’s car
Like it did last year.

The paper says the economy’s wrecked,
based off these numbers –
“based off”, that isn’t grammar –
Well, not grammar I respect,
I mean, for which I have respect,
Goddamn that plum tree.

Hi, I’m back with milk.
I’ll get hayfever tablets when the shops aren’t closed.
Well, it’s Sunday morning,
So, I guess at 10 –

Shit, that birthday starts at 10.
Well, I dunno, how old is he, eight?
He’s not my friend. Does he like books?
Would he like one of yours?
Well, you know a new one?
Cash in an envelope it is again,
on Sunday morning

Is that dog still there?
I’ll put the uniforms on to wash.
I’m not sure about the bacon,
It was old last week.
You can’t wear that to a party,
Because it’s raining, that’s why.
No, it is – well, it will be –
Try your jeans.
They might, just try.
Those aren’t your jeans.
Alright, alright, you’re dressed,
But with a jacket,
No, no, with a jacket,
It was not a request,
On Sunday morning.

Some other batteries might work.
There are three inside the race car,
Rechargeables, I think.
I charged them up last Sunday morning.

God, yes, a coffee, thank you.
Oh, that hits the spot.
I’m glad we didn’t use the UHT.
I’ll do the lawn next week.
The coat? Apparently it’s Jack’s.
Can’t wait to get to work tomorrow morning
And relax.