ETERNAL NIGHTCAP
1.NO APHRODISIAC
A letter to you on a cassette
'Cause we don't write anymore
Gotta make it up quickly
There's people asleep on the second floor
There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Truth beauty and a picture of you
You'll be walking your dog in a few hours
I'll be asleep in my brother's house
You're a thousand miles away
With food between your teeth
Come up for summer I've got a place near the beach
There's room for your dog
There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Truth beauty and a picture of you
There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Youth truth beauty fame boredom and a bottle of pills
There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
You shouldn't leave me alone
There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Bare feet like a tom-boy and a crooked smile
Truth youth beauty fame boredom red hair no hair innocence
Saturday and a picture of you
A letter to you on a cassette
You shouldn't leave me alone
Forty shaved sexy wants to do it all day
With a gun-totin' trigger-happy tranny named Kinky Renée
Tired teacher twenty-eight seeks regular meetings for masculine
muscular nappy-clad brutal breeding
While his wife rough-wrestles with a puppy all aquiver
on a wine-soaked strobe-lit Asiatic hall of mirrors and a dash of loneliness
There's no aphrodisiac quite like it
Truth youth beauty fame boredom red hair no hair innocence impunity
and a picture of you
I got a video set-up me love you short time she pay me suck his finger
with some fine wine
2.BUY NOW PAY LATER (CHARLIE No.2)
Charlie you're not my Charlie anymore you're screwing it up
You're killing your soul with an audience looking on
If I hadn't left early last night I would have made a speech to you
How you're not the only one you're going to hurt
If you don't believe me I don't believe in you
Makes it all feel better does it?
Makes you feel like heaven does it?
You loved it and you spent accordingly
You can't afford it now
You'll try and you'll fail
And love it like a little dog
And feed it on the scraps you find
And kiss it while you're still asleep
You buy now and pay later
So where's the problem you can ask if you keep your head up
But the road is long and you're falling asleep at the wheel
Here's a girl going crazy about you and I'm not far behind
Can you care about your friends anymore?
You buy now and pay later
3.LOVE IS EVERYWHERE
Love is everywhere, I don't want to bend down and pick it up
Love is everywhere, a shocking week but can Sunday bail me out
Love is everywhere, I want to sit here and hear the sound of that thing
What can an elfin do, put on a kettle for you?
Leave your mother in the cupboard, the writing's on the wall
I'm not coming back here no anymore
Take it all from me, I don't want it
Love is everywhere, I don't want to bend down and pick it up
Love is everywhere, I might just sit here and look around
Watching the day go by, putting all your eggs in the sky
Catch a bus and read a poem, look around there's no-one home
I think that I might stay here for quite a while
Love is everywhere, my mum's got a new boyfriend and I like the man
Take it all from me, je ne veux pas coucher avec toi ce soir
Love is everywhere, I want to sit here and hear the sound of that thing
4.YOU SOUND LIKE LOUIS BURDETT
You Sound Like Louis Burdett
Had a little bit to drink
There's a little thing I want at a do out East
Nothing too emotional, my good miss
I couldn't be serious in a room full of jack-knife eyes
Stop talking 'bout the years - you sound like Louis Burdett
And we roll on to my backshed, play some poker, scratch my head
Look at the sky and spot the planes, where would I go on holidays?
Roll with the punches, down the aisles, and down the street the weeks roll by
I'm chewing ice and grinning, I'm spewing up and spinning
It's billiousness as usual in my corner of the kitchen
Hey you, lose that friend before we go anywhere
What? Someone might see you alone?
Stop bagging out the band, you sound like Louis Burdett
All my friends are fuck-ups but they're fun to have around
Banana chairs out on the concrete, telling stories to the stars
how Gemini's love Wooden Dragons, and how down the street the weeks roll by
The moment the night wears off, the bombsite reappears
They're all asleep but the morning tastes like wine
It tastes like wine in Tempe
I feel so good I just might wake him up
Pat him on the bald head - tell me about a dream Louis, something
obscene Louis, your life's an open magazine Louis
I'm stoned in a bookshop, sober in a nightclub
Sex is everywhere but nowhere 'round me
By the time she gets to Marrickville we'll be masturbating
never rains in Tempe but the planes remind me of family money and the lack down here
Stop talking frustrated, 'cause I sound like Louis Burdett
Most of my friends are very fruity indeed, such fun to have around
Terror, like charity, begins at home
Chris don't like madness, but madness likes him
He's got a finger in his chest saying how it should have been
5.MELBOURNE
She paints pictures on the wall
She eats all of the garden
And has an aversion to conviction
And she calls her dog "the bear"
In love with this girl
And with her town as well
Walking 'round the rainy city
What a pity there's things to do at home
She paints pictures on the wall
I awake to see the feelings
from the night before
She eats all of the garden, it's a jungle out there
And we won't return by dawn
If I had three lives
I'd marry her in two
I'm dreaming of a time
That we sit when the music stops
She has an aversion to conviction
She's more confused than ever
Won't pay her fines and wonders when the cops will get her
She calls her dog "the bear"
And walks me with him to the corner
In her pyjamas
6.WHERE'S THE ENEMY?
He thinks it's best to criticize his own kind
An animal of greed, best to sew that social seed
I thought by my thoughts all would come clear to me
Yeah I can shoot a gun, maybe I should join the army
Is there a quiet place to lie?
Maybe watch this all go by
Wonder how can we survive
Wasting energy, where's the enemy?
I'd soldier on and walk the curvy line so straight
But I would fall behind, maybe I am not so blinded
You talk of so much pity that is self-related
Blaming now yourself, said the fault lies somewhere else
Repeated when the feeling's high
I wish it all could just rely
On the depth of you and I
Wasting energy, where's the enemy?
7.CHARLIE No.3
He'll need some time to get over this
But a moment is all he can spare
His buddies out there in the city lights
And he is trying to care
See him offering himself to the world
Staring down from the fifty-sixth floor
I'll be happy just to catch him again
We go out we don't always come back
The night pressing in on his weary mind
There's a half-eaten moon in the sky
Nothing is calling him back to bed
And no-one is saying goodbye
See him offering himself to the world
Staring down from the fifty-sixth floor
Yeah I'll be happy just to catch him again
We go out because we go back
And back and back…
8.LIFE'S A BEACH
Burning all the photos, sorting through the clothes
You bought this new for me and now it's full of holes
Remember babytalk in the morning
What's the hurry my girl?
You don't need any coffee if you take the day off school
We're all over and I'm all over town
We've got work here tearing it down
You know it's quicker packing for a holiday
'Cause I'd see these things again
I loved you in this T-shirt of mine
You can have it - it says "Life's a Beach"
There's a beach umbrella, couple lying in the sun
And for once in my life it's not the people from the suburbs
It's me's got it wrong
On through the evening and into the dawn
Journey me, journey me
Where love keeps on
Burning all the photos, they have a habit of mocking a single man
I'm keeping the first one, we're not even holding hands
We're all over and I'm all over town
We've got work here tearing it down
There's a beach umbrella, couple lying in the sun
And for once in my life it's not the people from the suburbs
It's me's got it wrong…
9.TANGLED UP IN BLUE
Early one mornin' the sun was shinin',
I was layin' in bed
Wond'rin' if she'd changed at all
If her hair was still red.
Her folks they said our lives together
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like Mama's homemade dress
Papa's bankbook wasn't big enough.
And I was standin' on the side of the road
Rain fallin' on my shoes
Heading out for the East Coast
Lord knows I've paid some dues gettin' through,
Tangled up in blue.
She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam, I guess,
But I used a little too much force.
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out West
Split up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best.
She turned around to look at me
As I was walkin' away
I heard her say over my shoulder,
"We'll meet again someday on the avenue,"
Tangled up in blue.
I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the ax just fell.
So I drifted down to New Orleans
Where I happened to be employed
Workin' for a while on a fishin' boat
Right outside of Delacroix.
But all the while I was alone
The past was close behind,
I seen a lot of women
But she never escaped my mind, and I just grew
Tangled up in blue.
She was workin' in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer,
I just kept lookin' at the side of her face
In the spotlight so clear.
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I's just about to do the same,
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me, "Don't I know your name?"
I muttered somethin' underneath my breath,
She studied the lines on my face.
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe,
Tangled up in blue.
She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
"I thought you'd never say hello," she said
"You look like the silent type."
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
>From the thirteenth century.
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Pourin' off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you,
Tangled up in blue.
I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs,
There was music in the cafes at night
And revolution in the air.
Then he started into dealing with slaves
And something inside of him died.
She had to sell everything she owned
And froze up inside.
And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn,
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew,
Tangled up in blue.
So now I'm goin' back again,
I got to get to her somehow.
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now.
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives.
Don't know how it all got started,
I don't know what they're doin' with their lives.
But me, I'm still on the road
Headin' for another joint
We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view,
Tangled up in blue.
10.LAUGH IN THEIR FACES
Laugh in Their Faces
We fall into old habits
Talk about giving it up after getting right on
Letter to your mother says you're doing everything you can
And I'm glad that she won't get the joke
You're as free as a ten year old
With a room of your very own
Doesn't matter at all what all those people say at home
With your good humour you're a hero
And you can stop them dragging you down
They've got nothing better to do
Sometimes you've got to laugh in their faces
It doesn't matter if your guitar is in hock
It doesn't matter if you owe us all a lot
'Cause you're getting happier by the minute
And they wouldn't have a clue about what it's like to be lazy
when you've got too much to do
11.CHARLIE No.1
We've seen her type before
Sandals and the hair
They fall in love with big dumb boys
And we sit and stare
So we walk the long way home
Glasses in our hands
When the last of the ice is eaten
Throw them as far as we can
There's a problem
There's no sleepy girl to wrap you in her loving arms
There's a lizard on the doorstep
And there is music in my head
We put the world on hold
Two young men growing old
We talk of years like lost weekends
And the harbour shrugs
Because friends are getting fewer
And we vow life will be fuller
But if the last of our dreams is broken
We'll walk the same way home
There's a gold star on your forehead
But there is trouble up ahead
Charlie what'll become of us?
I had my dreams for both of us
For both of us
You might be unworthy
But you remember what I remember
And that's enough to care
You don't fall off the rails
12.UP AGAINST THE WALL
To think it was going so well
We'd go out at night come home and fight like hell
Good fights about big things
You know just pushing around in the dark
To think I was scared to open the box
New love on the doorstep isn't it funny there's nothing on how it works
Go on have a look inside
You won't know what you did without it
Well you slept
You met interesting people
And you slept with them
I'm up against the wall now
Hotel room, a silent phone
A packet of fags, a bottle of wine, a suitcase you call your own
When the darkness comes from the inside out
And even the barmen are pricks
Vitriol, the cigarettes
A long night of thinking and the search for the best vignettes
Yeah well it was good wasn't it
Then it got bad,p> Some say love it only comes once in a lifetime
Well once is enough for me
She was one in a million
So there's five more just in New south Wales
There's a show on the television now
A man in the jungle with monkeys, he's saying we've come so far
Yeah well it's news to me
I'd better go evolve now
To think it was going to well
We'd go out at night come home and fight like hell
Good fights about big things
Like "who wrote the book on men?"
Well it was me
I'm up against the wall now
And I'm afraid to say I must fail her
13.BAND IN EVERY CORNER
Well there's a band on every corner
But I'm not in one
I hate three out of every four of them
But I haven't got a gun
I was ten hours asleep
But I stayed in my room
I forgot to remember
What I wanted to do
As the glare turns to twilight
My thoughts turn to food
Yeah and of what the hell happened
To the girl in the nude
She gave me a pill
She said it helped her in bed
When I lay down beside her
Couldn't even raise my head
What a fool am I
'Cause my dream was so bright
But I'm drowning in the city
With no saviour in sight
Well this night I'll go walking
Like the truth it's so near
I'll be back I imagine
To the boys and to the beer
There's a whole in my belly
I try and fill it with food
So I order a pizza
And the pizza-maker is rude
Lady in the jacket
Is looking just how I feel
So I sigh in my corner
And I ask for the bill
There's a band on every corner
But I'm not in one
I hate three out of every four of them
But I haven't got a gun
There's a band on every corner
I only play in my room
Where the filth is familiar
And the piano's in tune
LOVE THIS CITY LYRICS
UNDENIABLY THE WHITLAMS LYRICS
INTRODUCING THE WHITLAMS LYRICS
CONTENTS PAGE
DISCOGRAPHY