Kookaburra

Debut album – The Whitlams Black Stump
Album released 8 March 2024

CLICK TRACK FOR LYRICS

I had to go into the hills and see a man about a dog “Get here before the sun goes down”
And so I get into the truck and turn a right at Friday Hut I’ll come home around the town
The rain it slapped the land from sleep, it was green within a week Two birds escort me in
The world turning on the flash of a wing
And the worse that it was the better it will be You held onto the tail and that’s a victory
All this talk of how to be happy
And I’m off to see a man about a dog
And when I get up to the shack first night I hear the Big Old Cat rumbling out at sea Yeah “come on take the turn to land, not just a light show and a band, it’s the soaking we need”
The farmer dreams of cattle fed, tonight he’s working from his bed
On the roof the heavy drops that’ll break the Silence of the Frogs
And the worse that it was the better it will be You held onto the tail and that’s a victory
All this talk of how to be happy
And not a little content
Naught ’til ’21’s not a pity
When I’m off to see a man about a dog
Old farmer limping down the lane, his medal-winner’s out again and he waves at me And through the wonder of it all, put on Neil Young at Massey Hall ’72 or 3 Yeah and it’s dark when I get home, and I feel something coming on Blindfold, and Arvo Pärt I’m taking everyone on that drive I swear
All this talk of how to be happy
And not a little content
I used to love the Greek women
Now I love Greek men
I’m a Stoic in the morning
Out the city gate before long
I want no part of the new age dawning ‘Cause I’m off to see a man, off to see a man I’m off to see a man about a dog
I’m taking everyone on that drive I swear

A letter to you on a cassette
‘Cause we don’t write anymore
Gotta make it up quickly –There’s people asleep on the second floor

There’s no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Truth beauty and a picture of you

You’ll be walking your dog in a few hours
I’ll be asleep in my brother’s house
You’re a thousand miles away
With food between your teeth

Come up for summer
I’ve got a place near the beach
There’s room for your dog

There’s no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Truth beauty and a picture of you
There’s no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Truth youth beauty fame boredom and a bottle of pills

There’s no aphrodisiac like loneliness
You shouldn’t leave me alone
There’s no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Bare feet like a tom-boy and a crooked smile

Truth youth beauty fame boredom red hair no hair innocence Saturday and a picture of you

There’s no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Bare feet like a tom-boy and a crooked smile

Forty shaved sexy wants to do it all day
With a gun-totin’ trigger-happy missy named Kinky Renée
Truth youth beauty fame boredom red hair no hair awkwardness and a picture of you

You fall into the other place
A smile you’ve missed in a brand new face
And the promises you made they slip away
You tell yourself that it don’t mean that much
It’s where the itch and the hard nail touch
What she don’t know won’t hurt her anyway
Blind devotion, silent war, the boy and girl asleep next door
Sleeping with the enemy you trust
Fallen Leaves, are filling up my street
Fallen Leaves, I kick them from my feet
It’s just the way the old world turns
It’s the only way we learn
What she don’t know won’t hurt her, and now it’s killing me
When the whole thing hits the skids
She can only think about the kids
Not where we’ve been but what comes next
You said “It didn’t mean that much to me”
That’s not the point now she can see
You broke the only thing that you had left
Blind devotion, silent war, the boy and girl asleep next door
Sleeping with the enemy you trust
Fallen Leaves, are filling up my street
Fallen Leaves, I kick them from my feet
It’s just the way the old world turns
It’s the only way we learn
What she don’t know won’t hurt her, and now it’s killing me
She says it doesn’t matter anymore
No-one is the winner baby in a one-all draw
A woman scorned and all the rest
She who laughs the last laughs best
What she don’t know won’t hurt her, now it’s killing me
Fallen Leaves, are filling up my street
Fallen Leaves, I kick them from my feet
It’s just the way the old world turns
It’s the only way we learn
What she don't know won't hurt her, now its killing me
What she don't know won't hurt her, and now its killing me

Sitting in the backyard on a milk crate
Yeah I’m home but not ready to come up yet Going over all the trouble I’m in
How it’s written in the script
I was goin’ down
The moment the phone rang The minute they called
Why do I talk to every idiot
With an idiot idea?
It’s always race eight, the “Get Out Stakes”
Chasing through the smell and the sweat and the fear
You shake your head and say ‘you do you babe’, so I do me For a while I was bettin’ for two flies
And I thought we were home scott-free
It’s time to climb the stairs
You’ll be sleeping and not keeping the score
You lift me up
You brush me down You lift me up
Turn me around
I must have been alright in the last life To be lyin’ here with you
Here with you
When I slip away into my glass canoe
Slicing my way to the falls
You pull me over, say “Even a fool should know
They’re all sharks and leeches and lawyers”
And it was you said “Say sorry to Honest Don”, this little bugger’s in a little bit of strife He might listen to me, ‘cause I look like his son who wasn’t quite made out for
the criminal life
The moment the phone rang, the minute they called
You lift me up
You brush me down You lift me up
Turn me around
I must have been alright in the last life to be lyin’ here with you

Sunrise on the station breaks the morning’s spell
Red and green streamers flyin’ outside the Railway View Hotel
Cleveland St shuffles shinin’ into the mighty roar
We were walkin’ through the twilight the day John Sattler broke his jaw

Livin’ eight to a house, post Menzies’ land of plenty
But there was nothin’ left for people like us in September 1970
Some worked the Eveleigh railway yards, some worked the tanneries on the Botany shore
We didn’t work the Saturday that John Sattler broke his jaw

If it’s high enough, if it’s long enough, if it’s straight between the posts
Drink your beer and shed no tears for these days you miss the most
Every step and sill sat shinin’ in Black-It from door to door
And the tears rolled down like Reschs the day John Sattler broke his jaw

Saturday morning on the Botany road was mean and it was lean
Rabbit killers in old Ford Falcons stallin’ through a richer man’s dream
By afternoon we were jammed tight inside the hotel doors
Even the T.A.B. was empty the day John Sattler broke his jaw

Now in the Ladies Lounge a young girl rocks a pram
An old guy downs a Flag Ale with the ghost of Dave Sands
Clothes lines are flyin’ high, the sun is sinkin’ behind the flats
As stoned girls walk in circles with their babies on their backs

As big trucks roll down wide streets with heroin filled storm drains
Suburban towns they turn blue and brown, use old wars for their street names
They took you down to Campbelltown to Mount Druitt and St Marys
As Young Labor sits stoned in a terraced house, the Sydney Swans on pay tv

Written by Perry Keyes (Control)
Performed by The Whitlams, Black Stump Band – Tim Freedman, Rod McCormack, Ollie Thorpe, Matt Fell, Josh Shuberth

Had a little bit to drink
There’s a little thing I want at a do out East
Nothing too emotional, my good miss, I couldn’t be serious in a room full of jack-knife eyes
Stop talking ’bout the years – you sound like Louis Burdett

And we roll on to my back shed, play some poker, scratch my head
Look at the sky and spot the planes, where would I go on holidays?
Roll with the punches, down the aisles, and down the street the weeks they roll by

I’m chewing ice and grinning, I’m spewing up and spinning, it’s biliousness as usual in my corner of the kitchen
Hey you, lose that friend before you go anywhere. What? Someone might see you alone?
Stop baggin’ out the band, ‘cause you sound like Louis Burdett

All my friends are fuck-ups but they’re fun to have around, banana chairs out on the concrete, telling stories to the stars, how Geminis love Wooden Dragons, yeah and how down the street the weeks roll by

The moment the night wears off, the bombsite reappears
They’re all asleep but the morning tastes like wine, it tastes like wine in Tempe
I feel so good I just might wake him up
Pat him on the bald head

I’m stoned in a bookshop, sober in a nightclub, sex is everywhere, but nowhere ’round me
By the time she gets to Marrickville we’ll be masturbating
It never rains in Tempe but the planes remind of family money and the lack down here
Stop talking frustrated, I’m startin’ to sound like Louis Burdett



Words Tim Freedman
Music Tim Freedman, Mark Wells
(Sony Music Publishing/Control)

Rain is coming down as if it’s never gonna stop
It turns the house into a prison and pours silence over me
If time moves any slower I’d think that someone stopped the clock
This is a still life painting and I’m just another prop

I’ve only got myself to blame for falling so far down I wonder why I bothered now that your boyfriend’s back in town

I’m not allowed to call you but there’s everything to say To who could give me pride enough to turn my thoughts away I must have had my own life but I can’t remember what it was It’s tangled up in ivy and intertwined with yours

Rain still coming down and the night is creeping in
I’ll sleep in my own bed tonight for the first time in a month
And probably like the fool I am I’ll drown myself in wine
The same fool who told you he understood and didn’t mind

You're gonna have to tell her where the money went Why you can't pay the rent, why you gotta move
You're gonna have to tell her what happened to the car And who those guys are in the living room

Oh whoa whoa nobody wants to be you

Who's that girl who's hanging around?
The one with the white tube top and the tattoos Why's she telling everybody her luck is out? And what does that have to do with you?

Ohh, nobody wants to be you

Did you really think you could just move away? How dumb are you anyhow?
‘Cause those guys have their guys everywhere They’re probably watching us now

Ohh, nobody wants to be
Nobody wants to be
Nobody wants to be you

There's no one to call from a country town It's not a bad thing
I don't have anyone lovely to call
It's not a bad thing

I'm not doing the dirty, breaking a vow I'm not a tomcat doing the rounds
If I were there'd be no one to complain
There's no one worrying at home Ringing to see if I'll answer the phone Happy if after the show I'm alone

There's no one to call from a country town

And say I got a tan
Or we played under the biggest pergola This side of Japan

The mountains are hazy - the mist from the sea Is it good luck for dolphins on the wave with me Or, honey child I miss you just the same

It's strange to be happy if your boyfriend's lonely That's the way they are It's strange to be happy if your girlfriend's lonely That’s the way we are
There's no one worrying

There was the stage, two red lights and a dodgy P.A.
You trod the planks way back then
And it’s strange, you’re here again, here again

And I wish I, wish I knew the right words
To make you feel better, walk out of this place
And defeat them in your secret battle
Show them you can be your own man again

Don’t, don’t explain
Lots of little victories take on the pain
It takes so long to earn
You can double up or you can burn, you can burn

And I wish I, wish I knew the right words
To make you feel better, walk out of this place
And defeat them in your secret battle
Show them you can be your own man again

And I wish I, wish I knew the right words
To blow up the pokies and drag them away
They’re taking the food off your table
So they can say that the trains run on time

Flashing lights, it’s a real show
And your wife? I wouldn’t go home
The little bundles need care
And you can’t be a father there, father there

And I wish I, wish I knew the right words
To make you feel better, walk out of this place
And defeat them in your secret battle
Show them you can be your own man again

And I wish I, wish I knew the right words
To blow up the pokies and drag them away
They’re taking the food off your table
So they can say that the trains run on time
Another man there was made the trains run on time

Written by G.Gertler Gold, T. Freedman (Sony Music Publishing/Control)
Performed by The Whitlams, Black Stump Band – Tim Freedman, Rod McCormack, Ollie Thorpe, Matt Fell, Josh Shuberth.

We made love in the river
We made love in the South
We made love up in the mountains
We made love in the mouth

My spirit it is leaping
My body thinks it’s home
First I was afraid of your intentions
Now I’ve got my own

You’re making me feel 50 Again
Shaking like a leaf
You’re making me feel 50 Again
Sammy Davis Junior

Now I’m a little careful
I don’t drive real fast
When you know you’re lucky to be here at all sister
You want to make it last

ou’re my foolish adventure
Got nothing left to lose
The Lord he moves in a cotton ensemble
He’s moving in me too

You’re making me feel 50 Again
Shaking like a leaf
You’re making me feel 50 Again
Sammy Davis Junior
You’re making me feel 50 Again
Shaking like a leaf on Mount Olympus

You’re keeping me alive

I was betting with tomorrow’s paper
Mmmm, I really had it made
Now I hear you gotta win three times
Pick the horse, get on, and then get paid

You’re making me feel 50 Again
Shaking like a leaf
You’re making me feel 50 Again
As Sammy Davis Junior’s my witness
You’re making me feel 50 Again
Shaking like a leaf on Mount Olympus

You’re keeping me alive

Written by T. Freedman, J. Housden, D. Denholm (Sony Music Publishing/Control)
Performed by The Whitlams, Black Stump Band – Tim Freedman, Rod McCormack, Ollie Thorpe, Matt Fell, Josh Shuberth.

I'm gonna have so much fun
On the witness protection scheme There'll always be someone
On the witness protection scheme
Don't you know when you cross somebody It's just like a party
Blue skies and custody
All the day long
I can tell the truth one last time On the witness protection scheme Then I'll always be allowed to lie On the witness protection scheme
There’ll be a girl that I can call Who can never call me Unrecognisable
Who needs an identity?
There'll be a restaurant greets me personally
Won't throw out my friends for drinking things named after me
My ragged crew, my loyal friends on the witness protection scheme
Close down my site and lose my phone On the witness protection scheme

Lover, there will be another one
Who'll hover over you beneath the sun Tomorrow, see the things that never come today
When you see me fly away without you Shadow on the things you know Feathers fall around you
And show you the way to go
It's over, it's over
Nestled in your wings, my little one
This special morning brings another sun Tomorrow, see the things that never come today
When you see me fly away without you Shadow on the things you know Feathers fall around you
And show you the way to go
It's over, it's over

ETERNAL NIGHTCAP (DELUXE EDITION)

2022 Remaster from original half inch tapes
Album released 2 September 2022

CLICK TRACK FOR LYRICS

A letter to you on a cassette
‘Cause we don't write anymore
Gotta make it up quickly -
There’s people asleep on the second floor

There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Truth beauty and a picture of you

You'll be walking your dog in a few hours
I'll be asleep in my brother’s house
You're a thousand miles away
With food between your teeth
Come up for summer I've got a place near the beach
There's room for your dog

There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Truth beauty and a picture of you

There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Youth truth beauty fame boredom and a bottle of pills

There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
You shouldn't leave me alone
There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness
Bare feet like a tom-boy and a crooked smile
Truth youth beauty fame boredom red hair no hair innocence Saturday and a picture of you A letter to you on a cassette
No you shouldn't leave me alone
Forty shaved sexy wants to do it all day
With a gun-totin’ trigger-happy missy named Kinky Renée
Tired teacher twenty-eight seeks regular meetings for masculine muscular nappy-clad brutal breeding
While his wife rough-wrestles with a puppy all aquiver on a wine-soaked strobe-lit Asiatic hall of mirrors and a dash of loneliness
There’s no aphrodisiac quite like it
Truth youth beauty fame boredom red hair no hair innocence impunity and a picture of you I got a video set-up me love you short time she pay me suck his finger with some fine wine


Words T. Freedman, G. Dormand, M. Ford
Music Tim Freedman
(Sony Music Publishing/Mushroom Music Publishing)

Charlie you’re not my Charlie anymore you’re screwing it up
You’re killing your soul with an audience looking on
If I hadn’t left early last night I would have made a speech to you
How you’re not the only one you’re going to hurt

If you don’t believe me I don’t believe in you

Makes it all feel better does it?
Makes you feel like heaven does it?

You loved it and you spent accordingly
You can’t afford it now
You’ll try and you’ll fail
And love it like a little dog
And feed it on the scraps you find
And kiss it while you’re still asleep

You buy now and pay later

So where’s the problem you can ask if you keep your head up
But the road is long and you’re falling asleep at the wheel
There’s a girl going crazy about you and I’m not far behind
Can you care about your friends anymore?

You buy now and pay later


Words and Music Tim Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

Love is everywhere, I don't want to bend down and pick it up
Love is everywhere, a shocking week but can Sunday bail me out
Love is everywhere, I want to sit here and listen to the sound of that thing

What can an elfin do, put on a kettle for you?
Leave your mother in the cupboard, the writing's on the wall
I'm not coming back here no anymore

Take it all from me, I don't want it
Love is everywhere, I don't want to bend down and pick it up
Love is everywhere, I might just sit here and look around

Watching the day go by, putting all your eggs in the sky
Catch a bus and read a poem, look around there's no-one home
I think that I might stay here for quite a while

Love is everywhere, my mum's got a new boyfriend and I like the man
Take it all from me, je ne veux pas coucher avec toi ce soir
Love is everywhere, I want to sit here and hear the sound of that thing


Words and Music Tim Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

Had a little bit to drink
There's a little thing I want at a do out East
Nothing too emotional, my good miss, I couldn't be serious in a room full of jack-knife eyes
Stop talking 'bout the years - you sound like Louis Burdett

And we roll on to my backshed, play some poker, scratch my head
Look at the sky and spot the planes, where would I go on holidays?
Roll with the punches, down the aisles, and down the street the weeks roll by

I'm chewing ice and grinning, I'm spewing up and spinning, it's billiousness as usual in my corner of the kitchen
Hey you, lose that friend before we go anywhere What? Someone might see you alone?
Stop baggin’ out the band, ‘cause you sound like Louis Burdett

All my friends are fuck-ups but they're fun to have around, banana chairs out on the concrete, telling stories to the stars, how Geminis love Wooden Dragons, yeah and how down the street the weeks roll by

The moment the night wears off, the bombsite reappears
They're all asleep but the morning tastes like wine, it tastes like wine in Tempe
I feel so good I just might wake him up
Pat him on the bald head - tell me about a dream Louis, something obscene Louis, your life's an open magazine Louis

I'm stoned in a bookshop, sober in a nightclub, sex is everywhere, but nowhere 'round me
By the time she gets to Marrickville we'll be masturbating
Never rains in Tempe but the planes remind of family money and the lack down here
Stop talking frustrated, 'cause I sound like Louis Burdett

Most of my friends are very fruity indeed, such fun to have around
Terror, like charity, begins at home
Chris don’t like madness, but madness likes him
He’s got a finger in his chest saying how it should have been


Words Tim Freedman
Music Tim Freedman, Mark Wells
(Sony Music Publishing/Control)

She paints pictures on the wall
She eats all of the garden
And has an aversion to conviction
She calls her dog “the bear”

In love with this girl
And with her town as well
Walking ‘round the rainy city
What a pity there’s things to do at home

She paints pictures on the wall
I awake to see the feelings from the night before
She eats all of the garden, it’s a jungle out there
And we won’t return by dawn

If I had three lives
I’d marry her in two
I’m dreaming of a time
That we sit when the music stops

She has an aversion to conviction
She’s more confused than ever
Won’t pay her fines and wonders when the cops will get her
She calls her dog “the bear”
And walks me with him to the corner
In her pyjamas


Words and Music Tim Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

He thinks it’s best to criticise his own kind
An animal of greed, best to sew that social seed
I thought by my thoughts all would come clear to me
Yeah I can shoot a gun, maybe I should join the army

Is there a quiet place to lie?
Maybe watch this all go by
Wonder how can we survive
Wasting energy, where’s the enemy?

I’d soldier on and walk the curvy line so straight
But I would fall behind, maybe I am not so blinded
You talk of so much pity that is self-related
Blaming not yourself, said the fault lies somewhere else

Repeated when the feeling’s high
I wish it all could just rely
On the depth of you and I
Wasting energy, where’s the enemy?


Words and Music Tim Hall (Control)

He’ll need some time to get over this
But a moment is all he can spare
His buddies out there in the city lights
And he is trying to care

See him offering himself to the world
Staring down from the fifty-sixth floor
I’d be happy just to catch him again
We go out we don’t always come back

The night pressing in on his weary mind
There’s a half-eaten moon in the sky
Noting is calling him back to bed
And no-one is saying goodbye

See him offering himself to the world
Staring down from the fifty-sixth floor
He’s not happy it’s the weekend again
We go out because we go
Back and back….


Words and Music Tim Freedman, Greta Gertler (Sony Music Publishing/Control)

Words and Music Bob Dylan
Vocal Tim Hall

Burning all the photos, sorting through the clothes
You bought this new for me and now it’s full of holes
Remember babytalk in the morning
What’s the hurry my girl?
You don’t need any coffee if you take the day off school

We’re all over and I’m all over town
We’ve got work here tearing it down

You know it’s quicker packing for a holiday
‘Cause I’d see these things again
I loved you in this T-Shirt of mine
You can have it - it says “Life’s a Beach”

There’s a beach umbrella, couple lying in the sun
And for once in my life it’s not the people from the suburbs
It’s me’s got it wrong

On through the evening and into the dawn
Journey me, journey me where love keeps on

Burning all the photos, they have a habit of mocking a single man
I’m keeping the first one, we’re not even holding hands

We’re all over and I’m all over town
We’ve got work here tearing it down

There’s a beach umbrella, couple lying in the sun
And for once in my life it’s not the people from the suburbs
It’s me’s got it wrong


Words and Music Tim Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

We fall into old habits
And talk about giving it up after getting right on
Letter to your mother says you’re doing everything you can
And I’m glad she won’t get the joke

You’re as free as a ten year old
With a room of your very own
Doesn’t matter at all what all those people say at home
With your good humour you’re a hero

And you can stop them dragging you down
They’ve got nothing better to do
Sometimes you’ve got to laugh in their faces

It doesn’t matter if your guitar is in hock
It doesn’t matter if you owe us all a lot
‘Cause you’re getting happier by the minute
And they wouldn’t have a clue about what it’s like to be lazy when you’ve got too much to do


Words and Music Tim Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)


We’ve seen her type before
Sandals and the hair
They fall in love with big dumb boys
And we sit and stare

So we walk the long way home
Glasses in our hands
When the last of the ice is eaten
Throw them as far as we can

There’s a problem
There’s no sleepy girl to wrap you in her loving arms

There’s a lizard on the doorstep
And there is music in my head

We put the world on hold
Two young men growing old
We talk of years like lost weekends
And the harbour shrugs

Because friends are getting fewer
And we vow life will be fuller
But if the last of our dreams is broken
We’ll walk the same way home

There’s a gold star on your forehead
But there is trouble up ahead

Charlie what’ll become of us?
I had my dreams for both of us

You might be unworthy
But you remember what I remember
And that’s enough to care
You don’t fall off the rails


Words and Music Tim Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

To think it was going so well
We’d go out at night come home and fight like hell
Good fights about big things
You know just pushing around in the dark

To think I was scared to open the box
New love on the doorstep isn’t it funny there’s nothing on how it works
Go on have a look inside
You won’t know what you did without it

Well you slept
You met interesting people
And you slept with them
I’m up against the wall now

Hotel room, a silent phone
A packet of fags, a bottle of wine, a suitcase you call your own
When the darkness comes from the inside out
And even the barmen are pricks

Vitriol, the cigarettes
A long night of thinking and the search for the best vignettes
Yeah well it was good wasn’t it
Then it got bad

Some say love it only comes once in a lifetime
Well once is enough for me
She was one in a million
So there’s five more just in New South Wales

There’s a show on the television now
A man in the jungle with monkeys, he’s saying we’ve come so far
Yeah well it’s news to me
I’d better go evolve now

To think it was going so well
We’d go out at night come home and fight like hell
Good fights about big things
Like “Who wrote the book on men?”
Well it was me

I’m up against the wall now
And I’m afraid to say I must fail her


Words Tim Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)
Music Michael Vidale, Ian Hildebrand (Control)

Well there’s a band on every corner
But I’m not in one
I hate three out of every four of them
But I haven’t got a gun
I was ten hours asleep
But I stayed in my room
I forgot to remember
What I wanted to do

As the glare turns to twilight
My thoughts turn to food
Yeah and of what the hell happened
To the girl in the nude
Ah she gave me a pill
She said it helped her in bed
When I lay down beside her
Couldn’t even raise my head

What a fool am I
‘Cause my dream was so bright
But I’m drowning in the city
With no saviour in sight

Well this night I’ll go walking
Like the truth it’s so near
I’ll be back I imagine
To the boys and to the beer
There’s a hole in my belly
I try and fill it with food
So I order a pizza
And the pizza-maker is rude

Lady in the jacket
Is looking just how I feel
So I sigh in my corner
And I ask for the bill

Well there’s a band on every corner
But I’m not in one
I hate three out of every four of them
But I haven’t got a gun
There’s a band on every corner
I only play in my room
Where the filth is familiar
And the piano’s in tune


Words and Music Tim Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

Sancho

Album released 28 January 2022

CLICK TRACK FOR LYRICS

Kiss me like a Catherine Wheel,
One of us is out of touch
And one of us is out of time
I’ve got to tell you how I feel

There’s something ‘bout the way
You spin around and say

Kiss me like a Catherine Wheel
You tropical electric storm
Oh I can never keep you warm
And I can never keep it real

I didn’t think at all
I didn’t feel the fall

Kiss me like a Catherine Wheel
Love me like a roman candle
And all the seconds that we steal
Or am I much too much to handle?

I can really feel the flood
Champagne tastes a lot like blood
I can not know how I’m going to heal

Oh I know how fire works but I still let you kiss me like a Catherine Wheel

Kiss me like a Catherine Wheel
Kiss me like we’re going to die
Oh kiss me as we kiss goodbye
I’ve got to tell you how I feel

Like everything is sugar baby, everything is doomed
And everything was simple when I had you in my room
I thought it was going to burn, I feel it every time you turn
And I do not know how l’m going to heal

Oh I know how fire works but I still let you kiss me like a Catherine Wheel

Written by M. Washington (BMG / Origin Music)

Thank you for having me, thank you for being had
Nobody knows I love you, nobody knows how bad
Thank you for meeting me, thank you for getting around
After all these years
Nobody knows I love you, nobody knows you’re here
I was a reprobate, I let you disappear
Nobody knows I found you, nobody knows you’re here
Thank you for seeing me, thank you for being seen
After all this time
Nobody knows I love you, nobody knows that you’re mine
There’s a slither of ocean if you slide over there
Uncommon devotion, yeah and it’s quite an affair
Wouldn’t change your kiss if you wanted to, wouldn’t change your kiss
Devil in silhouette, a long-forgotten duet, fugitive years
An old dog and a fox, I’ll have mine on the rocks, a sweet souvenir
Written by T. Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

I’m not up for it tonight Sancho, but you know that the show will go on
So we ride tonight Sancho to another glorious victory of song
It’s a confidence game you know, they’ll come along to see a man who believes in himself
So bring the rubber walls won’t you, we might not be back this way and no-one should miss
out
We’ll slay all the heathens and first you’ll blind them with the perfect delay
Then the hits and the memories from the 90’s and the noughties and today
I need smoke and mirrors, Gaffage and Clink, Opera House Al on the lights
And when the Big Man starts dancing out in the front then you know it’s going alright
When their flags are lowered, a five minute call for the knights to depart
Leave those two mooks behind won’t you? They’re social, excitable, and they’re always the
last
Sing Steely Dan with the boys in the back row, I don’t get it myself but y’all have a ball
The Colonel has Clinkage, a bag of fine bounty for winos, just one hundred clicks, may’s well
get out and walk
Love, it’s cruel on the ladies, you’ve seen the looks in their eyes
Is that Dulcinea there the loading dock dancer?
And implacable you in the driver’s seat raising your brow
You’ll get three hours tonight Sancho before you might need to be assisting the Artist to pack
Pour him in the carriage, we need six weeks by six shows a week with all members intact
We’ll save all the heathens and first you’ll blind them with the perfect EQ
Then you’ll pass me your implement because you
Hope for the sake of the show that I got some glue for you
Written by T. Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

Sitting in the backyard on a milk crate, yeah I’m home but not ready to come up yet
Going over all the trouble I’m in, how it’s just written in the script
I was going down the moment the phone rang, the minute they called
Why do I talk to every idiot, with an idiot idea?
It’s always Race 8, the Get Out Stakes, chasing through the smell of the sweat and the fear

You shake your head and say “You do you babe”, so I do me
For a while I was betting for Two Flies and I thought we were home scot-free
It’s time to climb the stair, you’ll be sleeping and not keeping the score
You lift me up, you brush me down, you lift me up, turn me around
I must have been alright In the Last Life to be lying here with you, here with you
When I slip away into my glass canoe, and I’m slicing my way to the falls
You pull me over, say even a fool should know they’re all sharks and leeches and lawyers
And it was you said “Say sorry to Honest Don, this little bugger’s in a little bit of strife”
He might listen to me ‘cause I look like his son who wasn’t quite made out for the criminal life
Written by T. Freedman / W. Connolly (Sony Music Publishing / Control)
Backing vocals - Alex Lloyd

I can spot the next contestant, another fellow born to be clandestine
We rag tag we will survive, not the pudgy boys in the Windsor ties
Have we got a problem? Cambridge Three
Have we got a problem? It's up to me
If London burns again, if London burns again
The great leap from ennui to action, an historical expectation
Lurks in the shade of the illuminati, Eddie's not a bad chap for The Party
A simple case of act or perish, when it's whiskey and boys I relish
Now two queens are in the Palace, a worm is in the Rose
The Iron Lady stands and tells the secret, and if the revolution had been somewhere decent
I would have disappeared one day, but I'll stay and sip my tea
Written by J. Housden / T. Freedman (Control / Sony Music Publishing)

We made love in the river, we made love in the South
We made love up in the mountains, we made love in the mouth

My spirit it is leaping, my body thinks it’s home
First I was afraid of your intentions, now I’ve got my own
You’re making me feel like I’m 50 Again
Shaking like a leaf on Olympus
You’re making me feel like I’m 50 Again
As Sammy Davis Junior’s my witness
Now I’m a little careful, I don’t drive real fast
When you know you’re lucky to be here at all sister, you want to make it last
You’re my foolish adventure, I got nothing left to lose
The Lord he moves in a light cotton ensemble, he’s moving in me too
You’re keeping me alive
I was betting with tomorrow’s paper, I really had it made
But now I hear you gotta win three times - pick the horse, get on and then get paid
Written by T. Freedman / J. Housden / D. Denholm (Sony Music Publishing / Control)

We made love in the river, we made love in the South
We made love up in the mountains, we made love in the mouth

My spirit it is leaping, my body thinks it’s home
First I was afraid of your intentions, now I’ve got my own
You’re making me feel like I’m 50 Again
Shaking like a leaf on Olympus
You’re making me feel like I’m 50 Again
As Sammy Davis Junior’s my witness
Now I’m a little careful, I don’t drive real fast
When you know you’re lucky to be here at all sister, you want to make it last
You’re my foolish adventure, I got nothing left to lose
The Lord he moves in a light cotton ensemble, he’s moving in me too
You’re keeping me alive
I was betting with tomorrow’s paper, I really had it made
But now I hear you gotta win three times - pick the horse, get on and then get paid
Written by T. Freedman / J. Housden / D. Denholm (Sony Music Publishing / Control)

We made love in the river, we made love in the South
We made love up in the mountains, we made love in the mouth

My spirit it is leaping, my body thinks it’s home
First I was afraid of your intentions, now I’ve got my own
You’re making me feel like I’m 50 Again
Shaking like a leaf on Olympus
You’re making me feel like I’m 50 Again
As Sammy Davis Junior’s my witness
Now I’m a little careful, I don’t drive real fast
When you know you’re lucky to be here at all sister, you want to make it last
You’re my foolish adventure, I got nothing left to lose
The Lord he moves in a light cotton ensemble, he’s moving in me too
You’re keeping me alive
I was betting with tomorrow’s paper, I really had it made
But now I hear you gotta win three times - pick the horse, get on and then get paid
Written by T. Freedman / J. Housden / D. Denholm (Sony Music Publishing / Control)

I had to go into the hills to see a Man About a Dog
He said “Get here before the sun goes down”
So I get into the truck and turn a right at Friday Hut
I’ll come home around the town
The rain it slapped the land from sleep, it was green within a week
Two birds escort me in, the world turning on the flash of a wing

And the worse that it was the better it will be
You held onto the tail and that’s a victory

All this talk of how to be happy, and I’m off to see a Man About a Dog

And when I get up to the shack first night I hear the Big Old Cat
Rumbling out at sea
Yeah “come on take the turn to land, not just a light show and a band
It’s the soaking we need”
The farmer dreams of cattle fed, tonight he’s working from his bed
On the roof the heavy drops
That’ll break the Silence of the Frogs

And the worse that it was the better it will be,
You held onto the tail and that’s a victory

All this talk of how to be happy, but not a little content
Naught ’til ’21’s not a pity when I’m off to see a Man About a Dog

Old farmer limping down the lane, his medal-winner’s out again
And he waves at me
And through the wonder of it all, put on Neil Young at Massey Hall ’72 or 3
Yeah and it’s dark when I get home, and I feel something coming on
Blindfold, Arvo Pärt, I’m taking everyone on that drive I swear

All this talk of how to be happy but not a little content
I used to love the Greek women, now I love Greek men
I’m a Stoic in the morning, out the city gate before long
I want no part of the new age that’s dawning
‘Cause I’m off to see a man, off to see a man, I’m off to see a Man About a Dog

I’m taking everyone on that drive I swear

Written by T. Freedman (Sony Music Publishing)

“They don’t write songs about guys like me, here, I got one you can have for free”
He was with his old Mum, he’d brought her up the pub to watch the Rabbits run around
She liked to see him swear at televisions
Sledging men on football fields and lashing out on counter meals
Reminds her of the old man, how Souths and life will set you up to fall

I was at home with Mum in ’88, Friday night I wish I’d had a date
The phone rings at nine, it’s Bert the Baby Blue-Eyed Killer on the line
He says, “meet us out the back in 10”
Mum says “put a jumper on although you won’t be gone for long
Not when it goes to plan, and Bert will have a plan he does alright”

With my balaclava curled up like a turban on my head, “Get in”, he said
“All we need is a fourth to be a cockatoo if you don’t come I’m beltin’ you
I’m Australia’s Greatest Robber, it’s an honour for ya son, now come along”

A stolen Sigma in the lane, Bert says, “get in the back and I’ll explain
It’s an easy grab, but there’s two hours ’til the coast is clear, we’ll get a slab
And then we’ll get an art collection
My man has left the key outside, we’ll cut the canvas with these knives
Be in and out in twenty, Pro Hart and Norman Lindsay and Ken Done

With my balaclava curled up like a kitten on my head, “Get in”, he said
Some men when they’re drinking, mistake their thoughts for thinking
Australia’s Greatest Robber with somehow 30 years inside, and he says
“Now we’re four blocks away boys, pull your headgear down”
I wish it had been me deciding, you’d be mad to put a bet behind him
Bert, the blue eyes hurt

Four sittin’ ducks in a stolen car, we all need the Brassco but we’ve come too far
And if we get done, I hope that I get Malabar, the old girl would come
Three buses, stay with Aunty Val
Norman Lindsay and Pro Hart, I’m about to give my youth to art
These blocks are really long, and there’s not much going on behind those eyes

With my balaclava rolled down really tight below my chin, they let me in
Some men when they’re drinking, mistake their thoughts for thinking
Here we are two blocks away, fully hooded, on our way and
Sure enough some cops are passing, scratch their chinny chins
They see eight wide eyes, with cans of Reschs
Call it in, and then they met us there, foot of the stair

Bert looks the judge right in the eye, says “it was unseasonably cold that night”
They read mine out, but I don’t hear the verdict, mum was crying out
At least I got the ocean view
Australia’s Greatest Robber got me 13 months of bother
Ah, it’s who you hang around boy, who says, “you come along now for a ride”

Written by T. Freedman / A Farrow-Pryke / C. Waterstreet (Sony Music Publishing / Control)
Backing vocals - Dustyesky

The Whitlams
(Best Of)

Album released 28 January 2022

  • Blow Up the Pokies
  • Buy Now Pay Later (Charlie No.2)
  • Fondness Makes the Heart Grow Absent
  • No Aphrodisiac
  • Beauty in Me
  • Fall for You
  • Thank you (for loving me at my worst)
  • You Sound Like Louis Burdett
  • I Will Not Go Quietly (Duffy’s Song)
  • I Make Hamburgers
  • Gough
  • Following My Own Tracks
  • Shining
  • Royal in the Afternoon
  • Melbourne
  • The Road is Lost
  • Keep the Light On
  • The Curse Stops Here
  • Out the Back
  • There’s No-one

Little Cloud

Album released 20 March 2006

  • Been Away Too Long
  • White Horses
  • I Was Alive
  • Year of the Rat
  • Keep the Light On
  • Tonight
  • 12 Hours
  • Little Cloud
  • Beauty In Me
  • Fondness Makes the Heart Grow Absent
  • Beautiful as You
  • Second Best
  • Fancy Lover
  • Stay with Me
  • She’s Moving In
  • The Curse Stops Here

Torch the moon

Album released 2022

  • Cries Too Hard
  • Fall for You
  • The Lights Are Back On
  • I Will Not Go Quietly
  • Kate Kelly
  • Royal in the Afternoon
  • Gone Surfing
  • Best Work
  • Start My Cellar Again
  • Coming Over
  • Out the Back
  • Breathing you In
  • Ease of the Midnight Visit

Love this city

Album released 1 November 1999

  • Make the World Safe
  • Thank you (For Loving me at my Worst)
  • Chunky Chunky Air Guitar
  • Pretty As You
  • You Gotta Love This City
  • God Drinks at the Sando
  • Blow Up the Pokies
  • 400 Miles from Darwin
  • Time
  • Made Me Hard
  • High Ground
  • Unreliable
  • Her Floor Is My Ceiling
  • There’s No-one

Eternal Nightcap

Album released 8 September 1997

  • No Aphrodisiac
  • Buy Now Pay Later (Charlie No. 2)
  • Love is Everywhere
  • You Sound Like Louis Burdett
  • Melbourne
  • Where’s the Enemy?
  • Charlie No. 3
  • Life’s a Beach
  • Tangled up in Blue
  • Laugh in their Faces
  • Charlie No. 1
  • Up against the Wall
  • Band on Every Corner

UNDENIABLY THE WHITLAMS

Album released 1995

  • Peter Collard
  • Met My Match
  • Following My Own Tracks
  • 1995
  • End Of Your World
  • Pass The Flagon
  • I Make Hamburgers
  • You’ll Find A Way
  • Don’t Love Too Long
  • You Don’t Even Know My Name
  • Shining
  • I Get High
  • Hollow Log
  • If I Only Had A Brain
  • I’m Still Faithful
  • Why Doesn’t Andy?
  • Where Are You?

INTRODUCING THE WHITLAMS

Album released 1993

  • The Ballad of Lester Walker
  • Where is She?
  • Happy Days
  • Gough
  • Mum’s Going Out
  • Pigeons in the Attic Room
  • Woody
  • Jumpin’ Leprechauns
  • I’m Different
  • Winter Lovin’

Singles

NO APHRODISIAC (BLACK STUMP)

Single released 28 Jul 2023
Stream / Buy

KATE KELLY (FEAT. FELICITY URQUHART)

Single released 3 Mar 2023
Stream / Buy

BLOW UP THE POKIES (BLACK STUMP)

Single released 28 Oct 2022
Stream / Buy

THE DAY JOHN SATTLER BROKE HIS JAW

Single released 22 Jan 2022
Stream / Buy

50 AGAIN
(BLACK STUMP)

Single released 13 Aug 2021
Stream / Buy
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