1. |
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Hello stranger put your lovin’ hand in mine
You are a stranger, but your a pal of mine
Lord I came down here just see that gal o’ mine
I got in trouble and I’ll soon be doin’ time
But every time I ride a 64th streetcar
I see my baby just a peekin’ through the bars
She bowed her head and waved both hands at me
I’m prison bound and longin’ to be free
Weepin’ like a willow moanin’ like a dove
There’s a girl up country that I really love
Lord I’ll see you when your troubles are like mine
Lord I’ll see you when you haven’t got a dime
Hello stranger put your lovin’ hand in mine
You are a stranger, but your a pal of mine
I need a friend, won’t you be a friend of mine
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2. |
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When snows transform the hedgerow thorn
And frosting gilds the berry
Good men and true the fire logs hew
And in the inns make merry
Then, singing all as with one voice
It seems the very walls rejoice
And merriment about doth spring
When all men sing
Let every man so pitch his song
To help his neighbour sing along
To each and all contentment bring
When all men sing
When lambs are seen and trees spring green
Come forth in bloom the daisies
For winter’s end our thanks we’ll send
At Easter time sing praises
Then with a will, yea one accord
We’ll raise our voices to the Lord
And praise above our Heavenly King
When all men sing!
When in the fields his scythe he wields
Then hear his summer sound
As man and boy their lungs employ
The songs they echo ‘round
Resound from hill and roof and spire
Starting lowly building higher
So surely then his scythe will swing
When all men sing
When leaves they fall from elm tree tall
Then every back must bend
As young and old with courage bold
Their efforts they expend
Ensuring autumn’s gifts are stowed
‘Fore cold winter’s wind is blowed
Then comes an end to foraging
When all men sing
Here song’s in season every year
Some voices sweet while others strong
Gently round ascending
With harmonies a-blending
As unison accords the song
Uplifting beams of inn or hall
And shaking plaster from the walls
When all men sing!
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3. |
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This life is a journey we a’ hae tae gang
And care is the burden we carry alang
Though heavy be our burden and poverty our lot
We’ll be happy a’ together owre a wee drappie o’t
Owre a wee drappie o’t, owre a wee drappie o’t
We’ll be happy a’ together owre a wee drappie o’t
The trees are all stripped of their mantle sae green
The leaves of the forest nae langer can be seen
And winter is here wi’ his cauld icy coat
But we’re a’ met together owre a wee drappie o’t
Job in his lamentation said ‘Man was made tae mourn”
There’s nae such thing as pleasure from the cradle tae the urn
But in his meditations Job surely has forgot
The pleasure man enjoys owre a wee drappie o’t
So raise high your glass let your troubles lie the night
They surely will wait for you by morn’s clear light
Whate’er be your trade, be it loom, plough or boat
We’ll be happy a’ together owre a wee drappie o’t
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4. |
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A tale I’ll tell of a perilous gate upon the Eastern coast
Of many shipwrecks and ruins this narrow gate can boast
Beneath Newcastle harbour waves
Lie rotting hulks and sailors graves
Hero’s tombs are hidden caves
Below the Nobby’s post
Yes sir, a pretty entrance but were I homebound sail
I’d rather stand far out to sea when it blows a stiffish gale
Blowing from the south or east
Each huge wave a crest of yeast
Is charging like a wounded beast
And mounts the rolling rail
On the sixth day of November in 1858
The Eleanor Lancaster was caught entering that perilous gate
We watched those huddled in the top
With nothing but a slender prop
Which at each blow we thought would drop
As all the timbers failed
An awful sea was running and not in all that crew
Was one who thought boats could be brought those boiling breakers through
Then a little fair man
Pushed and panted as he ran
And urged us all the waves to scan
And to our mates be true!
“Come lads” he shouted shrill and clear “Who’ll venture it with me?
Each minute lost a life may cost in such a tumbling sea
With four good men I’ll wager
We’ll bring them all to shore
Come who will try?” Three answered “I”
And I sir made up four
It was a roughish kind of trip but Chatfield steered us well
I see him there with his fairish hair facing what befell
And when we’d brought them all to shore
He shook us by the hand once more
I’ve met no braver men before
The truth to you I’ll tell
For ten more years the oyster bank was beaconed by a spar
That stood in witness to the storm that sank the Lancaster
Five fathoms deep her rotting shell
A prayer the slender mast did tell
A brave deed done so nobly well
A good ten years before
Then toward the close of winter hard blowin’ all the night
The great sea horses tearing high raced madly past the bight
Many a man came down to see
If inbound craft there chanced to be
Sailors’ wives watched anxiously
Out on the surging flood
Cawarra was comin’ in I knew her bow so well
We watched her as she struggled on and battled with the swell
We watched her through the mounting blast
And hoped that once the Nobby’s past
The harbour she might make at last
None but the gods could tell
She tried to turn again to sea when a snow white whiff of steam
Told us that her fires were out and she drifted on her beam
Her boilers by the waves were quenched
Her engines by the waves were drenched
Watchers hearts were sorely wrenched
And hope a fading dream
No boats set out to rescue those still clinging to the wreck
‘Though one was there with his fairish hair, he now stood on that deck
His beacon pointing to the sky
Urged us not to let him die
But his same noble feat to try
No man would risk his neck
Many’s the time at midnight I’ve heard the tempest roar
I’ve lain awake and wished that I could have the chance once more
To be the one to leave the crowd
To call his name out clear and loud
And free from Neptune’s salty shroud
Bring him back to shore
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5. |
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Oh my Donald he works upon the sea
In the waves that blow wild and free
He splices the ropes and he sets the sail
As southward he roams to the home of the whale
And he ne’er thinks of me left far behind
Nor of the torments that rage in my mind
He is mine for only a part of the year
And then I’m all alone with only my tears
So ye ladies that smell of wild rose
Think ye for your perfume to where a man goes
Think ye of the women and children who mourn
For a man ne’er returned from hunting the sperm
|
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6. |
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|
With our nets and gear we’re faring
On the wild and wasteful ocean
It’s out there on the deep
That we harvest and reap our bread
As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring
Oh it was a fine and a pleasant day
Out of Yarmouth harbour I was faring
As a cabin boy on a sailing lugger
For to go and hunt the shoals of herring
Oh the work was hard and the hours were long
And the treatment sure it took some bearing
There was little kindness and the kicks were many
As we hunted for the shoals of herring
Oh we fished the Swarth and the Broken Bank
I was cook and I’d a quarter-sharing
And I used to sleep, standing on my feet
And I’d dream about the shoals of herring
Oh we left the home grounds in the month of June
And for Canny Shiels we soon were bearing
With a hundred cran of the silver darlings
That we’d taken from the shoals of herring
Now you’re up on deck, you’re a fisherman
You can swear and show a manly bearing
Take your turn on watch with the other fellows
While you’re following the shoals of herring
In the stormy seas and the living gales
Just to earn your daily bread you’re daring
From the Dover Straits to the Faroe Islands
While you’re following the shoals of herring
Oh I earned my keep and I paid my way
And I earned the gear that I was wearing
Sailed a million miles, caught ten-million fishes
We were sailing after shoals of herring
Day and night the sea we’re daring
Come wind come hail or winter’s gale
Sweating and cold, growing up
Growing old and dying
As we hunt the bonnie shoals of herring
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7. |
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Oh the weary cutters and oh the weary sea
Oh the weary cutters have taken my laddie from me
They’ve pressed him far away foreign with Nelson all on the salt sea
Oh the weary cutters have taken my laddie from me
Oh the lousy cutters and oh the weary sea
Oh the lousy cutters have taken my laddie from me
They always come in the night; they never come in the day
They come in the night and steal the laddies away
Oh the weary cutters and oh the weary sea
Oh the weary cutters have taken my laddie from me
I’ll give the cutter a guinea; I can give the cutter no more
But I’ll give them a guinea to steal my laddie ashore
|
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8. |
Len Neary - Lowlands
03:05
|
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|
I dreamed a dream the other night
Lowlands, lowlands away my John
I dreamed a dream the other night
Lowlands, my lowlands away
I dreamed my love came standing by
Came standing close by my bedside
She’s drowning in the lowland sea
And never more coming home to me
The sea-green weed was in her hair
‘Twas then I knew there was no life left there
She lies there in the windy lowlands
She lies there in the windy lowlands
I dreamed a dream the other night
Lowlands, lowlands away my John
I dreamed a dream the other night
Lowlands, my lowlands away
|
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9. |
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|
Mighty sea you have such power in your hand
Your waves they can turn the rock to sand
But all of the strength you wield can never set me free
If you can’t make that sweet boy love me
For all your great voice you can’t kneel by his bed
And whisper my name in his dreams
And all of nature’s power means nothing now to me
For I’ll die if he never loves me
Gentle Earth with your magic old as time
But I can only see it as a crime
That you give birth to the flowers, the ferns and the trees
Yet you can’t make that sweet boy love me
Sky above with your sunshine and your rain
Can you send me down something to ease the pain?
For all your thunder and lightning is useless can’t you see?
If you can’t make that sweet boy love me
|
||||
10. |
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11. |
||||
|
Hey whatever happened to you?
And whatever happened to us?
Hey we missed the proverbial boat
The plane and the train and the bus
Yeah we pushed and we shoved, we fell outta love
Tore each other apart
Yes, love is grand but I can’t understand
Why you broke my proverbial heart
Well we used to be in love
Now we are in hate
You used to say I came to early
But it was you who came too late!
Hey boy meets girl you give it a whirl
And the very next thing you know
You thinks she’s nuts, she hates your guts
And the bad blood starts to flow
Well it sounds like sour grapes
And that’s just what it is
Gonna send my subscription to Oracle
You can send my subscription to Male
Hey that’s a whole lotta crap about a tender trap
Love’s just a suicide snare
All I wanna do is forget you and our lousy love affair!
(lyrics reprinted by kind permission of Snowden Music)
|
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12. |
Dennis Aubrey - Naked
02:16
|
|||
|
I dreamed that I was naked, standing in the street
Nothing but my guitar and the shoes on my feet
I didn’t know what to do so I sang a song
Some guy who said he was a Christian came along
And he said “Shame on you heathen!
Standing naked is a sin!”
I said “I’m sorry you’re embarrassed
By this predicament I’m in”
I didn’t choose to be here like this, wearing only skin”
He said “Shame on you heathen!” again
A guy with lots of money came up
And when he saw me there
He said “I started out with nothin’ once” I said “Oh yeah?
Could you help me out now please?
I need to buy some clothes”
He said “I’m sorry, my adviser told me not to issue loans”
I said ‘Thanks a lot mate, for your generosity”
Then a woman and a five year old boy came up to me
She looked at me and turned bright red
And started to scream
To everybody in the street there “It’s obscene!”
I remember thinkin’ “lady if you don’t like what you see
Why do you insist on starin’ at me?”
I was more embarrassed by her than she was by me
I hid behind my instrument and I hoped she’d go away
Then the little kid came up to me, he said
“Why’ve you got no clothes on, standing in the street?”
I said “I dunno kid I just got here in a dream”
He said “So did I, I know what you mean”
I dreamed that I was naked, standing in the street
Nothing but my guitar and the shoes on my feet
I didn’t know what to do so I sang a song
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13. |
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|
Beetles in the basin in the bathroom
Striped with black and blue
Beetles in the basin in the bathroom
I’m in the bathroom too
How embarrassing! I’m in the bathroom too!
-
I can spell hat, h-a-t
I can spell cat, c-a-t
I can spell fat, f-a-t
But I can’t spell hippopotamus
I can spell dog, d-o-g
I can spell log, l-o-g
I can spell hog, h-o-g
But I can’t spell hippopotamus
H-i-p-p-o I know, and then comes p-o-t
But that’s as far as I can go and that’s what bothers me, Gee!
|
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14. |
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|
Here’s my story, sad but true
About a pot plant I once knew
I met it at the nursery, took it home to stay with me
But soon its little leaves it shed
It shrivelled up, then dropped dead
Was it something that I said?
Why don’t my houseplants like me?
Next day I bought another one
If plants had legs it would’ve run
This fern thought it would rather die
Than live with me, don’t ask me why
I treated it exactly right with water, fertiliser, light
But it didn’t make it through the night
Why don’t my houseplants like me?
Well soon the pattern was quite plain
Plants all treat me with disdain
Steadily decrease in size, refuse to photosynthesise
Oh, suicidal shrubbery it’s a mystery to me
This botanic conspiracy
Why don’t my houseplants like me?
I only wanted something to love
A pretty plant to call my own
A very special floral friend
To brighten up my empty home
But now the only thing that’s left of them
Is curled-up leaf and dried-up stem
Guess I’ll never come to terms
With anti-social angiosperms
But there’s just one thing that will make me calm
A plant that cannot come to harm
Now I’m shopping for a plastic palm
Why don’t my houseplants like me?
|
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15. |
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Would you like to play bridge and have a nice cup of tea
In the morning, Mrs Abrams?
We’re starting out at ten
Mrs Iltis and Flora Hazleton
What we need is a fourth ‘cause Ida Yancey’s not here
She’s at her sister’s in New Jersey
So, Mrs Abrams, will you play - what d’ya say?
Well, I haven’t played bridge since my husband died
It’s been a while, Mrs Reilly
I can hardly remember the rules
I’m really rusty and I know I’d feel like a fool
But since you ask I could give it a go
Mrs Iltis has a book she’d lend me I know
So, Mrs Reilly, it’s tea at ten - see you then
Would you like to play pool in the tournament?
We could be partners, Mr Gaffney
There’s a game that starts at two
Mr Sheen and Ted Fine against me and you
Yes, you’re my pick you bank ‘em in every time
We could both win a trophy
Mr Gaffney, will you play - what d’ya say?
I like to catch a few winks, take a snooze at noon
I get so tired, Mr Rosen
There are times when I’m so stiff
I can hardly keep a hold of the darn queue-stick
But since you ask, it doesn’t feel like rain
Last night I slept great
With those pink pills for the pain
So, Mr Rosen, see you at two
We’ll take ‘em on, me and you!
Would you like to play horn in the orchestra?
You’d be terrific, Mr Lopez
We’re tuning up at three
Your friend Hal Herschel’ll play the tympani
We’re gonna play a little Gershwin and some J S Bach
Can you even believe
We’re gonna try a little pop and some rock?
So, Mr Lopez, will you play - what do you say?
My lip is not in shape, my horn is worn and old
It’s at my brother’s, Mrs Malcolm
My sight-reading’s awful slow
It’s been years, I’d hold you up I know
But since you ask I could just stop by
I could sit in for a while if you need me
So, Mrs Malcolm, I’ll see you at three at the do-re-
I’ll even bring my brother with me to the do-re-
And thanks for asking me to the do-re-mi!
|
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16. |
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|
Come gather round and listen to this tale of misery
It happened long ago at some poor girl’s kitchen tea
It should have been a party but things turned sour instead
There were stains upon the carpet and over twenty dead
It started out okay I guess as the ladies gathered round
The bride-to-be was happy with her crimplene dressing gown
The handy-bin from Grandma would be useful in her home
And Mrs Duke had painted her a hand-made garden gnome
Then Aunt Mel took exception to a comment from her niece
And she responded angrily and kicked her friend Bernice
Fights broke out around the room and none got out alive
Of the kitchen tea Tupperware massacre of 1965
Well it turned into a melee - you could see the plastic fly
A gift-wrapped beetroot strainer caught Kate above the eye
Red and yellow lunchboxes flew about the place
And someone rubbed a cheese grater down Mrs Porter’s face
A see-through, freezer canister killed Mrs Ross stone dead
A sawn-off salad crisper protruded from her head
PVC had severed limbs before the police arrived
At the kitchen tea Tupperware massacre of 1965
Thirty years have come and gone since the bodies were entombed
The Forensic Squad sought evidence and ordered them exhumed
They dug up Mrs Henderson and the mother of the bride
They were neatly stacked in Tupperware, fresh and crisp as the day they died!
|
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17. |
Paul Spencer - Freaks
02:51
|
|||
|
There are strange people living in the city
They shave their chins and armpits
And dress up like cement
Their nervous eyes evoke a sense of pity
They’ve bought themselves a prison
Which was never their intent
The only way to free them is to shock them
Show them the reality that’s killing me and you
They’re the only ones who can unlock them
When I see them on the escalators all I want to do is yell
“Freaks! What are you doing?
Dressing up like mannequins and marching up and down
Can’t you smell the poison you’re brewing
While you’re living in a bubble in the plastic part of town?”
They think its human nature to be selfish
To them co-operation is a weakness of the mind
They recognise the system isn’t healthy
But they’d rather just enjoy it, and leave it all behind
Now that’s just not acceptable behaviour
Tripping on consumption and the products of today
Excreting waste in our suburban graveyard
When they colonise my television
I just want to say to them
They don’t believe in things outside the present
The future has no value if it can’t be sold today
They help to make each other’s moments pleasant
By building a reality that keeps the world away
We have to talk some holes into their fortress
Teach them to respect the future’s right to just exist
Use the lessons history has taught us
When I cycle past their traffic jams
The hardest to resist is yelling
|
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18. |
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|
Horoscopes and cigarettes and fancy hair
Chocolate cake and Rikki Lake and Marie Clare
Jenny Craig and calories
Reading Tarot cards and the Woman’s Day
With aliens coming down to take us all away
I’m sure they’ve been here for years
Like a dream within a dream, like a looking-glass world
Her life is like a spiral, how it curls
And she’s living in the woods between the worlds
Drinking Diet Coke and cappuccino
Keeping up with Quentin Tarantino
Mortgages and salaries
Stomach tuck and lipo suck are all the rage
But luckily you can’t afford them on your wage
You’ll have to age so gracefully
|
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19. |
Karen Cregan - Tom
05:49
|
|||
|
Tom rolled his cigarette, cursing the breeze
For blowing it half away
In green eyes made iron grey I see reflections of a boy
“Oh Tom your a clumsy one
Fall’n down and broke your arm again”
There’s a price you’ve paid from pain and it’s not freedom
Oh Tom the anger that you keep
Is the anchor to your father’s wrongs
Oh Tom don’t make him pay by punishing his son
At seven years of age too scared to run
From the only home he’d ever known
He kept it on his own and the secrets eat the man away
I believe him when he says his anger is a hidden thing
It’s disguised itself from even him
You can’t see your rage, the secret dragon in our love
Oh Tom, if you can’t forgive
How will you heal your father’s wrongs?
Oh Tom don’t make him pay by punishing his son
At thirty-seven years of age
Now you’re running away from home
Your bedroll on your arm by the freight train yards
And after childhood years of drunken hate
If you wish him dead maybe you can relate
To the pain in your heart that you’d wait
Just to hear ‘I love you son’
You deserve to live and be free
You deserve to love and be free
Victims and knaves and distributors of blame
Are players in a game of tears
In the end you waste those years
With bitter hearts still hungry
So come little Tom lay yourself in my arms
A kiss can make it go away
And if it helps today my breast will be your mother’s
Oh Tom, if you can’t forgive
How will you learn to love and live?
Tom don’t make him pay by punishing his son
|
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20. |
||||
|
He was a man and a friend always
He stuck with me through the hard old days
He never cared if I had no dough
We rambled round through the rain and snow
So here’s to you my ramblin’ boy
May all your rambles bring you joy
Here’s to you my ramblin’ boy
May all your rambles bring you joy
In Tulsa town we chanced to stray
We tried to find some work one day
The boss said he had room for one
Says my old pal ‘we’d rather bum’
Late one night in the jungle camp
The weather it was cold and damp
He got the chills and he got ‘em bad
They took the only friend I had
He left me here to ramble on
My ramblin’ pal is dead and gone
If when we die we go somewhere,
I bet you a dollar he’s ramblin’ there
|
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21. |
||||
|
Tempted and tried we’re oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested ‘though in the wrong
Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brothers
Live in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all by and by
When death has come and taken our loved ones
Leavin’ our homes so lonely and drear
Then do we wonder why others prosper
Livin’ as sinners year after year
Often I wonder why I must journey
Over a road so rugged and steep
While there are others living in comfort
While with the lost I labour and weep
|
||||
22. |
||||
|
There’s a man in my bed I used to love him
His kisses used to take my breath away
There’s a man in my bed I hardly know him
I wipe his face and hold his hand
And watch him as he slowly fades away
And he fades away
Not like leaves that fall in autumn
Turning gold against the grey
He fades away
Like the bloodstains on the pillow case
That I wash every day
He fades away
There’s a man in my bed, he’s on a pension
Although he’s only fifty years of age
The lawyer says we might get compensation
In the course of due procedure
But he couldn’t say for certain at this stage
And he’s not the only one
Who made that trip so many years ago
To work the Wittenoom mines
So many young men old before their time
And dying slow
He fades away
A wheezing bag of bones his
Lungs half clogged and full of clay
He fades away
There’s a man in my bed they never told him
The cost of bringing home his weekly pay
And when the courts decide how much they owe him
How will he spend his money
When he lies in bed and coughs his life away?
|
||||
23. |
||||
|
Fading away like the stars in the morning
Losing their light in the glorious sun
Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling
Only remembered for what we have done
Only remembered only remembered
Only remembered for what we have done
Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling
Only remembered for what we have done
Only the truth that in life we have spoken
Only the seed that in life we have sown
These shall pass onwards when we are forgotten
Only remembered for what we have done
Who’ll sing the anthem and who’ll tell the story
Will the line hold? Will it scatter and run?
Shall we at last be united in glory
Only remembered for what we have done
|
||||
Miguel Heatwole Sydney, Australia
Miguel’s a versatile singer, choral director & composer. His interests include folk & world music, political satire, the environment, trade unionism & the responsible enjoyment of alcohol. His songwriting embraces themes like peace & justice, the family cat, & visceral passionate attraction. His enthusiasm for recording community singing has let many people share the power of their songs. ... more
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