SONG LYRIC DATABASE - B

The songs in this section are

BACK ON THE BORDERLINE

W - James/Garrett/Hirst
 From the bar to the bedroom I'm swimming in the neon
Lighted pictures of a redhead, plasticoated hot on
And sometimes when that mirror shows
The smile of disbelief
Stained signature of nightmares
They're stolen by the thief

I'm back on the borderline
Yes I'm back on the borderline

By the end make a bet and only place is laminex
Laugh a lot cry a lot salt and pepper supper sex
And sometimes when that magic of the moment
Fails the test
In retrospect that diamond day
Did not make second best
And sometimes when a thousand voices
Tell you that you're wrong
A saint in any form
Becomes a sinner all along

BAKERMAN

W - Hirst

BASEMENT FLAT

W - Rotsey/Garrett/Moginie
 Must be time for a second chance
I can't escape this basement flat
Writers cramp and claustrophobia
Must be time for a better place
My sink leaks and the rats have won the race
Over and over

What can I do
There must be some solution

Must be time for a new idea
Pack up my things get away from here
They're never going to trace me

People upstairs make so much noise
Drive me mad with their electrical toys
Louder and Louder

If you stay in my pen,
Don't turn your radio up loud
Don't bring no pets
No animals
No TV sets
No girlfriends there
Don't come around
Don't be undone
Don't steal the faith
Don't make it right
And one more thing
Don't fight
Don't steal
Don't come...

BEDLAM BRIDGE

W - Hirst
 In this city with no footpath
There's a building with no people
There is crime and gun decisions
There's a street of heat and hawkers
There's a house of hope and drifters
There's a gang that shoots then listens

There's a place that knows no poverty
A town without pollution
There's a soul with good intentions

There are canyons full of movie stars
Churches made of metal
There are mountains made of muscle
We have leaders who are anxious
We have captain not courageous
Captains tumbling into madness

But there's a man who makes no enemies
A body never breathless
No ambition ever hopeless

Up on bedlam bridge somebody is waiting
Up on bedlam bridge I'm shot to heaven
Oh
Up on bedlam bridge
Waiting

In these locked and shackled neighborhoods
Bridge and tunnel diplomats
See the golden ghetto's creeper

Crazy flags from history
Songs for the White House gangsters
Guns for hellgate railway sleepers

But there's a man who makes no enemies
A body never breathless
No ambition ever hopeless

So how stands the city on this winter's night?
The city on the hill or so they said
The now is falling down around the armoury
The city's closing in around my head

Up on bedlam bridge somebody is waiting
Up on bedlam bridge I'm shot to heaven
Oh
Up on bedlam bridge
Waiting

Drive
Drive the engines harder
Drive

Drive
Won't you turn the engines over
Drive

BEDS ARE BURNING

W - Hirst/Moginie/Garrett
 Out where the river broke
The bloodwood and the desert oak
Holden wrecks and boiling diesels
Steam in forty five degrees

The time has come
To say fair's fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share

The time has come
A fact's a fact
It belongs to them
Let's give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning

Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From Kintore East to Yuendemu
The western desert lives and breathes
In forty five degrees

BELLS AND HORNS IN THE BACK OF BEYOND

W - Midnight Oil
 The Southern Aurora was late again
As I waited at central to take you home
Winking spinning sparkling lights on our flat earth
You talk about the old groundling ways
Where the suburbs summer pulse and play in wrinkled sand and
never never never neverland
I get home I see them drive down
I look out and see those lines and lines and lines of swell and
smiles
Coolangatta, what's the matter?
Paradise, it's a surfer's world and flashing lights and real
estate
With one last wave
Ahhh, get up and run
'Cause there's a beach lies quiet near the open sea
And a carpark lay streched where the bindis used to be
When will I be yours
When will I be mine

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

W - Hirst/Moginie
 You say times are tough
We've got the best of both worlds here
Things are rough
We've got the best of both worlds here
Times are tough
We've got the best of both worlds here

The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here
The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here

The old world is not as safe with the new world closing in
The great south land can be as great as the one it could have been
The one it could have been

The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here
The small world is not as strong and the testing ground is near
The old world is not as safe as the one we could have seen
The great south land can be as great as the one it could have been
The one it could have been

We've got the best of both worlds

BLOSSOM AND BLOOD

W - Hirst/Moginie
 You the mothers who sent your sons
Wipe away your tears
For those who fought and those who fell
Become our sons as well.

You the warriors with your words
Throw away your spears
You talk of times of peace for all
And then prepare for war.
All the people with dreams, all mothers with sons
All people with dreams never woken at night by the sound of guns.
Like a child that's born on a moonless night
Like a child that's born, we parachute down to an unknown fight.

This city of blossom and blood
This city suffered more than it should
These sidewalk silhouettes not washed away, not washed away.

Whatever you've done, whatever you've done, whatever you've done.

There's a hope in the heart says never again.
Whatever you say, whatever you say, whatever you say
It's the price of peace to remember that day.

BLUE SKY MINE

W - Midnight Oil
 There'll be food on the table tonight
There'll be pay in your pocket tonight

My gut is wrenched out it is crunched up and broken
My life that is lived is no more than a token
Who'll strike the flint upon the stone and tell me why?

If I yell out at night there's a reply of blue silence
The screen is no comfort I can't speak my sentence
They blew the lights at heaven's gate and I don't know why

But if I work all day on the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
Still I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)

The candy store paupers lie to the shareholders
They're crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers
The balance sheet is breaking up the sky

So I'm caught at the junction still waiting for medicine
The sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine
Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night

And if you blue sky mining company won't come to my rescue
If the sugar refining company won't save me

Who's gonna save me?

But if I work all day on the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
And if I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)

And some have sailed from a distant shore
And the company takes what the company wants
And nothing's as precious
As a hole in the ground

Who's gonna save me?
I pray that sense and reason brings us in
Who's gonna save me?
We've got nothing to fear

In the end the rain comes down
Washes clean the streets of a blue sky mine

BRAVE FACES

W - Moginie/Garrett
 I've seen faces in the window I've seen faces in the street
They talk and walk of nothing
I've known many restless summons the sand dunes I imagine
A place without a postcard
Flower people were so beautiful but straight and louds the way
Good luck the beatnik spirit
The talk of politicians the sentences of cynics are the sentences
of childhood

They're all talking shit to me

Outtalked by the mass media to pay the bills it lies
And the lies we eat with breakfast

Brave faces face the boardroom the oak stained walls
Fall silent they leave lined with defeat
And they got those tears in their eyes
Well it makes no sense to me

Why don't they understand we're so ordinary too
I saw the exits closing now
Pain and passions my point of view
Well there's nothin like the truth

I've seen men that have been marked out, ruled out by grim
assassins
They fell hard on instant replay
And I'm never going tere well the place I see is so much better
'Cos it makes no sense to me
I saw the exits closing now
Burning mountains burning paper burning all around and eaten.

BULLROARER

W - Hirst/Moginie/Garrett
 In the desert in the dry
Before the breaking of the rain
The temperature in the shade
Had reached a hundred and ten again

In the desert in the dry
On the overland telegraph line
Don't take the law into your own hands
Don't go looking for a fight

I've heard the bullroarers

In the desert in the dry
Sun sits so high
Long day's mile and the
Radio crackles and the bones bleached white

It's a knock-em-down storm
See the tin roof shake
Wild dog howls and the long grass
Whistles and the tall trees break

I've seen the wild horses
I've heard the bullroarers
I've seen the wild horses

Shifting sand and broken plans
Lead me on to my homeland

BURNIE

W - Moginie/Garrett
 Brought up in the world of changes, part time cleaner in a holiday
feat
I stare out to sea at the ships at night
No anaesthesia, I'm going to work on it day to day
No zephyr, no light relief it seems

But maybe it's a dream
I'm lying back in a row of timber cases
Placed out on the dock with nightmare faces looking at me
And I can see now and I wanna be free now

This is my home
This is my sea
Don't paint it with the future of factories
I want to stay
I feel ok
There's nothing else that's perfect
I'll have my way

Brought up in a world of changes, waste product pedestrian limb
from limb
Short changed by the surfing priest again
Two children in the harbour, they play their games storm water
drain
Write their contract in the sand, it'll be grey for life

But you can draw the blind, but you can't stop the sun
From shining on and on
And getting you there
Tide forever beckons you to leave something holds you back
It's not the promise of a swell or a girl just
A hope that someday someway it'll be ok
So you step and say

This is my home
This is my sea
Don't paint it with the future of factories
This is my life
This is my right
I'll make it what I want to
I'll stay and I'll fight

BUSHFIRE

W - Garrett/Moginie
 In my shoes, in my shoes
There is so much to remind me
As the stars come out above me, home

Cool wind, clear my head
Bright sun grow my food
Strong rain clear my heart
Fill my land
It's a new day

I don't know why it is sold
Don't know why it's so cold
In this life that we live

New day new day new day

In my shoes, in my shoes
There is so much to astound me
As the whirlpool spins around me, home

Bushfire, burn and grow
Sunset watch and rest low
Long night holding child close, feed my dream

It's a new day
I don't know why it is sold,
Don't know why it's so cold
In this life that we live

New day new day new day

It's larger than life, darker than death
We're gonna move those mountains aside

Here come the messages

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