1. DON'T WANNA BE THE ONE

I'm an innocent victim, I'm just like you
We end up in home units with a brick wall view
I can't believe the perfect families on my colour TV
If I don't make it to the top it'll never bother me

And I don't wanna be the one
And I don't wanna be the one

I'm an innocent bystander caught in the path
Waiting out the back while the corporate attack
Assaults the senses with relentless scenes of passion and delight
I cut up all the options and went running for my life

*****

2. BRAVE FACES

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.

*****

3. ARMISTICE DAY

You're watching people fighting you're watching
People losing on Armistice Day
You're watching people fighting
You're watching people losing on Armistice Day

The watchers do the wincing reporters so convincing
But the two never lies
I went looking for a war but the only guns I saw
Never used in anger

You're watching people fight, say they fight
Oh say they lose on Armistice Day

The fixers do the fixing the locals do the lynching the papers deny
I went looking for a headline got talking to the backline
They'd never seen the action

*****

4. SOMEONE ELSE TO BLAME

Tell for yourself
Watch me sweat, watch me crawl
Stretch me on the table up against the wall

You can see for yourself
But you better not say
You're working four more hours every other day

See me suffer see me pain
Must be somone else to blame
See me suffer see me pain

There's more trouble at the dockyard
Parties shouting at the union
Short fuses on their anger
Workers in confusion

Then there's the vandals of the right
They stalk the streets at night
Got someone else to fight
got someone else to blame

You can speak for yourself
Before the moment is lost
But I don't wanna shout 'cos I'm counting the cost
I'm counting the cost

*****

5. BASEMENT FLAT

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...

*****

6. WRITTEN IN THE HEART

The god forsaken rifleman stands rigid at the bar
The kids discover victims in the rubble and the tar
They're married to ambition to the slogans of the war
Slogans that used to be scrawled on the wall
and written in the heart

A woman bows to Mecca and she struggles to her feet
It's better since the president took shooting off the street
She pictures all the poverty the cursed hold war
The pictures that used to be scrawled on the wall
are written in the heart

The elders make a promise and they forge it in the fire
The general's car is sabotaged, four bullets in the tire
With the burning of the words there goes the
scorching of the heart
The words that used to be scrawled on the wall
are written in the heart

*****

7. BURNIE

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

*****

8. QUINELLA HOLIDAY

The bar was crowded in the arvo din
and the voices got higher and higher
For the man at the back with the tickets in his hat,
He would have to do more than aspire to
A place with some light on the sand near a beach,
A place near some green running water
Place on the hill with a view of the sea
And the cooking was done by his daughter

If the quinella comes in today
If the quinella comes in today

The day is late and the race is run
A full weeks wages and the lots been done
'Cos the meeting is over and the crowd has thinned
Another long week, lady luck makes it plain
His dreams and hopes are dashed in vain
In the final shout as they call his name
His tickets lie like scattered leaves out on that asphalt plain

Looking around for the moment that's right
Lottery life well, the numbers are tight
As they try one more pull on the handle too late
He thinks of what could be it sticks in his thread

If the quinella comes in today
If the quinella comes in today

*****

9. LOVES ON STEAL

Everbody says that loves on special and sale
And everything you've ever wanted, you've got to pay for
It seems so easy and gettable, yes it's real

If you've got money, it's such a steal

Everybody says that life is the number one
But everytime you try to get some, you've gotta buy it
It's all so special, accessible, pretty and nice
It's oh so wonderful at a price

You can rent a life today why worry about the real thing
Pay up new and plug in quick it's easy to co-ordinate
Just credit card the right idea
Why wait around and contemplate
The hidden cost of what you've got
It's better not to.

*****

10. IF NED KELLY WAS KING

Hollows threats and a great adventure
So much business, towns in the dirt
Company cans and efficient Americans

Three black boys sit in the corner
White woman waiting to talk
Lots of intention but no understanding

If Ned Kelly was king
He'd make those robbers swing
He'd send them down

Out in the deadheart tourists and cameras
Four wheel drives wreck, snapshots and slides
Follow the brochures but nothing's inside

Heavy machinery loud in the outback
Dreamtime developers they make all the sound
Where will we be when they leave us a quarry?

If Ned Kelly was king
He'd make those robbers swing
He'd send them down there
He'd make them stay
And we can hope

*****

11. LUCKY COUNTRY

Speed and this there's a feeling I get when I look to the sun
Love it's so tough 'cos it raises your hopes
and then it makes you run

We're all looking for a shorter day
We're all looking for an easy way
Even when the debts are dead and gone

Down the stairs and an eight mile drive waits for you to turn on
Hear the time clock sing and the smoke in the distance
reaches the eye line
We're all working on a shorter day
We're all looking for an easy way
Even when the debts are dead and gone

No conversation as you got there's so much space the heat moves you
Terracotta homes - backyard bar-b-q and eucalyptus smell
It's fine on the clothes line, it's fast food and slow life and red roof
My silence - comic interruptions
Surely there's some relief from atomic art and the fragile state of world
Events with clowns who love the kings and power and the mutant media babes
Working on dreams and fashions and toilet paper flowers
Don't talk to me in this backyard - it's clandestine, it's nuclear.
Smell of space and now forever I wanna go straight down the exit eight mile
Attraction u-turn is up and the time clock sings let's go

Lucky country where the geckos are paid to live in the sun
On and on there's a ribbon of road and a mile to spare
Lucky country, lucky country