Here is a live version of our song Book of Life recorded as a surprise for a cousin's girlfriend's birthday. Two of our daughters, Alma & Hettie, sang with us.
Blow the horn blow the horn
Give a voice to all the mournful souls who search to be reborn tonight
Forgiveness like the sharpest knife
Oh G-d inscribe me in the Book of Life
I’ve been hungry since before the dawn
Everybody’s empty but it’s not for food
Everybody’s praying here to be rescued
Examining our sins it’s hard not to conclude
We’re screwed
The worlds in flames these maddened days of black and white
No shades of grey to keep at bay the darkest night
There’s never been a song that could save a life
Blow the horn blow the horn....
Tired and full of uncried tears I still can’t shed
Stored up with the unsaid things we never said
You wanted forgiveness I wasn’t ready yet
Now you’re dead
For all the souls who lost themselves I sing for you
Apart from that there’s nothing more that I can do
And though I know it’s useless it kind of helps me through
Blow the horn blow the horn....
I want to see my children out in the world
Grown into women from little girls
Why didn’t you want that too?
The older you get the more friends you lose
Next year I won’t disappear in fire or flood
Next year I’ll still be here to do some good
I won’t be taken by pills or thrills or wine
I should be doing fine
Blow the horn blow the horn....
Happy New Year to the faithful & the unfaithful, to the movers & the shakers, the sad & lonely, to those who get it done & those who want it done. May you appreciate this is all a gift that one day is taken away and passed on like a baton in a relay that you wish could be held onto just a little bit longer. xx
From 1999 a rarity called Happy New Year. By the time New Year rolled around in 1999/2000 we were in hospital with a one day old baby girl, our third. We briefly wished each other a happy one and then went back to our dreaming.
From Paul Kelly’s self-described ‘mongrel memoir’ ‘How To Make Gravy’ pg 139-140
"Everybody Wants To Touch Me’ is sometimes read as a riff on celebrity. That seems to be Sydney cabaret singer Paul Capsis’s take on it on his album of the same name. Medusa-haired Deborah Conway, Melbourne singer-songwriter and mother of three, knows a little about celebrity and pregnancy both. She fronted a band called Do-Re-Mi in the eighties and had a big hit with a song called ‘Man Overboard’, featuring the memorable lines ‘Your pubic hairs on my pillow, your stubble rings the sink.’ Her shapely posterior was also famous, full-framed and proudly bare on big Bluegrass Jeans billboards nationwide, with the tagline ‘Get yours into Bluegrass’.
Do-Re-Mi functioned as a collective - a shaky construct in pop music at the best of times - and used language such as ‘ideologically unsound’ (the predecessor of ‘politically incorrect’) in their band meetings. Deborah, with her ...
Antarctica, destination of majesty, of mystery, of dreamlike otherworldliness; the air so clear you could see the future. Our nights rocked by the seas, our days filled with light, colour, wildlife, adventure.
And no internet! For 11 whole days the world could not intrude.
Thanks @Chimu & @Intrepid
Back in Australia with almost enough days to recover from jet lag before the next stop - Israel.
