CATHERINE WHEEL

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)

NOBODY KNOWS I LOVE YOU

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)

SANCHO

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)

IN THE LAST LIFE

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

CAMBRIDGE THREE

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
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)

(YOU’RE MAKING ME FEEL LIKE I’M) 50 AGAIN

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)

GET A HOTEL ROOM

Before the bags are ready, before you disappear
Just know I tried so hard, I throw my hands into the air

The flapping of the failed, the furious – fat rooster, hyperthyroid eyes
Give it the fight it wants it would be wanton boys to flies

Get a Hotel Room, you and your bat faced Romeo
Get a Hotel Room, you’ll be wide awake at dawn

I’ll see you in a year or two, who’ll be looking out for you?
It’s all aboard the Magic Bus I’m leaving

Together you birds of feather, not half as clever as you might think
You’re going ‘round and ‘round your little circles in the sink

Taking something for the pain? Lovers fighting in the lane
The nights are long, the days are disappointing

Get a Hotel Room, you’ll be lying awake at dawn
Show them kindness they will love you
Show them love they will kill

Written by T. Freedman / J. Housden (Sony Music Publishing / Control)
Organ – Ian Peres

SANCHO IN LOVE

CB radio rigged up on the bike, out on the airwaves – Scone tonight
We move around for the love of Jesus, my floor is all transmitters and receivers
State your issue for resolution, there are no problems just solutions
I like to pull things apart, then put them all back together

Took the Hunter Line down to the rock and roll, standing in the middle of the crowd
Think I might have found what I want to do, join the circus folk and turn it up loud

Thump in my chest it’s the sound of Sancho in Love

Melody meets electronics, I’m a gear queer – they’re alcoholics
Laundromats, asleep on buses, the soft hum as the prairie rushes by
John C. Dvorak, Leo Laporte, yeah that’s how I know what know
I like to pull things apart, then put them all back together

Your credit card is exploding, we won’t see you in the bar
With a handful of tokens on the way to your own high score
There’s a nice type of romance waiting in the wings for you
With a blanket on your head don’t want the band to know just who

Written by T. Freedman / J. Housden / W. Hornby (Sony Music Publishing / Control)

MAN ABOUT A DOG

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)

BALLAD OF BERTIE KIDD

“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

NO APHRODISIAC

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)

BUY NOW PAY LATER (CHARLIE NO.2)

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

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)

YOU SOUND LIKE LOUIS BURDETT

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)

MELBOURNE

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)

WHERE’S THE ENEMY?

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)

CHARLIE NO.3

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)

LIFE’S A BEACH

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)

TANGLED UP IN BLUE

Words and Music Bob Dylan
Vocal Tim Hall

LAUGH IN THEIR FACES

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)

CHARLIE NO.1

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)

UP AGAINST THE WALL

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)

BAND ON EVERY CORNER

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)