In light of recent tragic and shocking events here in Oz I have chosen mainly to remain silent, but this video says what I might say, but far more eloquently.

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For no particular reason.

Just trying to get our minds off things – things like Bondi Beach and racism and guns and hate. On a day when nothing makes sense this song doesn’t either.

Maybe it means that there’s no shame in not being heard, that your own truth need only be audible to yourself. No one should have to listen.

***

Achievements? Zero, No-one’s hero

no applause, no fame, no glory,

I walk alone, without a throne, a song without a story.

No magic cape, no great escape

Credits fade to black

No blood’s been bled, just look ahead

No point in looking back

 

I told the truth, back in my youth,

With no-one there to hear.

Now as a ghost, my only boast,

Is ‘no-one’s lying here’.

 

No speech, no toast, no lies,

no slender alibis

It comes as no surprise

No-one laughs and no one cries

No cheering crowd, no grand parade,

The shadows fade, no life’s been made

 

I told the truth, back in my youth,

With no-one there to hear.

Now just a ghost, my only boast,

Is ‘no-one’s lying here’.

I tried to stand, had nothing planned

My only grace, an empty space

Nothing to fear when nothing’s clear

‘Cause no-one’s lying here

***

 

 

 

Track three (recorded only this morning) takes a slightly different direction when dealing with an old seminal work …. this one, I think, another of Alisha’s mad ravings.

A slightly punky rock vibe felt better than the country blues style the band has previously adopted. And my singer went back to rehab, so had to source another.

The less audible the words, the better the song.

**

 

 

you can call it privilege

i can call it a curse

this consciousness, this being here

Is getting kinda worse

fighting foreign feelings

stuck inside my head

up and down this see-saw

where angels fear to tread

 

you call it beauty

I call it hell

The fire burns inside me

But I can’t endure the smell

Inside my head a prison

can’t escape myself

wish I was an object

Just sitting on a shelf

 

 

i’d rather be a vegetable

i’d rather be a rock

i’d rather be a glove

i’d rather be a sock

won’t be coming back here

if they offer this again

i’d rather be the words

than the hand that holds the pen

 

 

 

 

I’m not the girl that he saw

Lying in his bed

I’m not the person you knew

I’m someone else instead

Yes it’s true, I’m feeling blue

In a  world that’s turning red

Quite disturbed by what I heard

Or by what i might have said

 

I’m here again, back on the train

Back into the rut

One day I’m a princess

The next day I’m a slut

I’m coming to the party

I’m in my party frock

I’d like to be your lover

But I’d rather be a sock

 

 

i’d rather be a vegetable

i’d rather be a rock

i’d rather be a glove

i’d rather be a sock

won’t be coming back here

if they offer this again

i’d rather be the words

than the hand that holds the pen

 

consciousness is overrated

being human’s complicated

give me simple, give me dumb

make me thoughtless

make me numb

 

 

 

I was fumbling through the archives looking for a potential track 3 when this popped up. I can’t remember when I wrote it or why. But it struck me as pertinent in these times.

*

We were told, in hushed tones, that he was crazy. And that was made clear from the day he moved into number 21, next to Mrs Simpson.  Although the word ‘crazy’ was never used, of course. He was, more commonly,  referred to as ‘eccentric’. But we quickly learned that ‘eccentric’ meant ‘crazy’. It was just a more polite way of putting it. A polite sort of insult, I suppose. For we lived in a very polite street.

 

He was from Afghanistan and he had a thick accent that no-one understood very well, but from which everyone could somehow ascertain that he was not very intelligent. And probably dangerous.

 

And my mother told me that, under no circumstances, was I to accept any offers of lollies or cold drinks from him. And perhaps that it might be best if I didn’t talk to him at all. Ever.

 

But here was the problem. I walked past his house everyday as I came home from school and if he wasn’t tending to his vegetable garden at the time he was sitting on his verandah sipping on hot tea and staring out into the distance. And when he saw me he said hello and before I knew it we were talking daily about football and the weather and how to make lemonade and what sort of roses grew best in dry soils.

 

And he told me about his former life as a doctor and how, one night, the police came and took his wife away. And then he said, “but don’t you worry about that because this is a better country where everyone is free and they don’t put people in jail for no reason.”

 

And so I was a bit surprised when they came with their flashing lights and their sirens and their airs of self-importance and they pushed him into the back of the van and drove him away. I was walking home from school just at that moment so he had the opportunity to say, “don’t worry …. a misunderstanding … I’ll see you again soon”, or something like that.

I never saw him again.

 

There are laws against eccentricity here, of course. I realise that now.