LYRICS - FIRST TIME REALLY FEELING
FIRST TIME REALLY FEELING
I’ll call you when it starts to snow
When you’re still deeply breathing
No matter how I come and go
Feels like I’m always leaving
And I move faster every time
My body is still reeling
The fear of losing your own mind
When it’s the first time you’re really feeling
But if you tell me it had been a dream
I wanna go now, don’t want to be seen
Won’t get in the way of anybody’s heart
I just want to get out before it starts
Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me
You gotta stop calling me
When you’ve got another sweetheart
I’ve been searching far and wide
For someone to keep us apart
There’ll be no tears, no jealousy
We don’t owe each other nothing
That’s the pull in possibility
But if you get none, can’t be no fussing
But if you tell me it had been a dream
I wanna go now, don’t want to be seen
Won’t get in the way of anybody’s heart
I just want to get out before it starts
To hurt me, don’t hurt me
I’ll call you when it starts to snow
When you’re still deeply breathing
No matter how I come and go
Feels like I’m always leaving
And love it ain’t a conscious thing
And my body is still reeling
The fear of losing everything
When it’s the first time you’re really feeling
2. Dangerous
Our love was quite the whirlwind
Married by the time I was nineteen
Living in a prefab out in Cremorne
The force of a fire front was raging in you
We fucked like we fought, ripped the flesh from the sinew
No greater fever between any two
And you’d say, darling, sometimes I feel dangerous
Darkness stretching, no light nowhere, dangerous
You quit the navy, got your union tatts
And with your land legs your great thirst came back
While your children grew up quiet in another room
You packed it in when I packed up the kids
Said you were terrified of all those things I told you that you did
Said you didn’t understand the rage that could devour you
And you said, darling, sometimes I feel dangerous
Darkness waiting, no light nowhere, dangerous
When there’s fighting in the factions
There’s no decisions, just a set of reactions
We drove the camel pelt country down the shimmering Hume
To where your aunts rode trams in wisteria hue
And you set about hosing the tiles in your sticky soul
You weeded out those rotten roots from down in the marrow
Taught the union boys the power in the straight and the narrow
To them you were a father, a healer, a tower, a force
Your own father you couldn’t talk to easily
To say, there’s something in you, and I’m terrified it might be in me
So you grew up pushing it away
But I’m so proud of you, and my love is a monster
Ain’t luck that got you through, you earned everything that belongs to ya
Our kids will come ‘round, they gotta find out for themselves
That darling the truth is sometimes it’s dangerous
Darkness stretches, there’s no light nowhere, dangerous
But there are floodlights hiding, waiting for us to do the deciding
There is hope under the heavy, high tightrope we’re all walking over our brevity
There is bounty in the burden, a freedom in never being certain
Dangerous
3. BIG CITY
I watch dust being spat up by a squall
Small stones splitting, kicked against the wall
I’m buzzing but I can’t barely move
Hands clenched red ‘til I let them loose
I course like a storm drain in a flood
Tight vein rushing full of golden blood
These bells still ring and I’m still shivering
You still sing through the recesses of everything
A part of me is spinning urgency
If let it in again then it’s shame on me
Roots of a tree that should long be felled
What the eye don’t see the stomach will still tell
I grew underneath the western sun
Bright blue cut by the bitumen
Small hand safe inside a larger fist
Small pain growing slowly like a cyst
Is it a foolish thing that I’m still waiting
Your tongue stings through the Trojan platitudes you bring
What I need from you and what you can be
If I fool myself, then it’s shame on me
New city, much less open sky
I’ve never felt more like I could fly
I’m setting you finally adrift
Big hooks pulling loose before the shift
On this shore there are castles of my own
In a bed tiny buds that I will grow
Your eyes are with me everywhere I go
They are leopards hunting in the snow
When I made a start pulling all this apart
I found you still in the very centre of my heart
But there’s so much of you, no other light gets through
I can’t see anymore, and I’ve got work to do
Big city, give it to me
Big city, I want everything that feeds me
Disappear into your blood
Big City, I’m ready for ya
Big city, it’s just you and me
I’m we’re gonna be welcoming the good things
Steel eyes, matter of trust
Big city, I am enough
Big city, give it to me
Big city, I want everything that feeds me
Disappear into your blood
Big City, I’m ready for ya
Big city, it’s just you and me
We’re gonna be welcoming the good things
Steel eyes, matter of trust
Big city, I am enough
4. THE WANING OF THE SUN
Strange light, evensong, river gums paint on the glassy Murray
We’ve been smoking and the silty dust straps our feet, bare as a baby
If this day was the last, I’d have been happier than I ever thought I’d be
And I’ll suspend all that needs to be tended to, to watch the waning sun of January
How I wish I could live in my hindsight, safe in the prism of the past
I was melancholic even as a child, I would yearn for days older, to feel tugs on lines already cast
I feel it in my throat, that’s where my sadness sleeps and grows when I let it
It makes it hard to swallow without tears pushing, under the waning sun of January
My ancestors were always songs in my neck
Northerners and Irish, the cold and the coal
They waited in me ‘til I was quiet enough
They sang together until their sadness was still
I am their keeper of their best and their worst
They flow through me, all their songs and their thirsts
All that they gave me, all of my choices
My head’s full of a choir of a thousand voices
5. VICTORIA
I am walking inside myself
Now that these streets belong to someone else
But I feel new blood running through my hands
Deep in my pockets as the shadows here expand
The city I love it ain’t my city no more
The house we grew up in doesn’t stand here anymore
The swarm of change has sent its huge flanks wide
I’m gonna watch ships come in on another tide
Little tiny baby I’ll never let you down
But I cried in the morning just to hear a sound
Don’t you worry darling I won’t give you up
But I’m here in the middle and in the middle isn’t far enough
I used to walk here in the winter time
The quiet streets washed out by yellow lights
Brown paper in the window where our days were spent
Coffee like nectar, now they can’t afford the rent
A wave of grief looms over me
And I cower in the indents of my history
So I’m leaving here before here leaves me
No need to tread damp sands where rivers once flowed out to sea
Little tiny baby I won’t let you down
Cos I cried in the morning just to hear a sound
Don’t you worry darling I won’t give you up
But I’m here in the middle and in the middle isn’t far enough
Every numbered track that binds these suburbs to each other
Every length of fresh chalked line, bluestone lane, brick wall and gutter
Every house I got fucked up in ‘til they all looked like any other
Informs it all since I could crawl, you taught me all I know
Victoria
6. THE METROLOGIST
I’ve never seen you here before
Have you got time for just one more
This rain won’t let up for an hour at least
And I don’t have anywhere I have to be
Around here there’s not much else to do
I wouldn’t mind sitting down and spending time with you
A silicone ball measures kilos so they’re the same everywhere
You know I never think about it, so much of what goes on out there
Sound waves measure a metre in metric, and imperial
What are the feet, would you say, between our table and that bar stool
Tell me more about what you do
I’ve never met anyone who knows as much as you
I could keep asking you things eternally
So much of what you’ve been saying deeply appeals to me
I’ll try to keep my questions linear, try to articulate exactly what I mean
You better bring the bottle back, look like the rain’s gonna settle in
So what’s the weight of the booze, would you measure that in milliliters
How many years have I lost, I’d only count them if I was a defeatist
But the only thing wasted here is that wine if don’t finish my drink
Is it numbers and scales to you
Tell me how you see the things that I do
Man I’d love to be inside of your head
Cos mine’s getting harder to bare
Things are getting darker, it’s feeling harder, I can’t remember
Where were we, I’m sorry
I’ve been trying to keep straight, trying to keep it together
But these tiny little tremors getting heavier and heavier
The numbers confuse me, I don’t understand and now I have this strange swelling in both of my hands
I got the wrong shoes on, not prepared for the terrain,
It’s so pretty up here but I’m preoccupied with the pain
Can you tell me how long before I disappear
What’s the point look like at which I am no longer here
If my body’s too heavy and my list’s too long
Have I failed as a woman ‘cos my measurements are wrong
The goalposts keep shifting, the ball slippery with rain
They want us to compete but they won’t put us in the game
What’s the unit for the negative shit in my head that only drowns when I down a solid litre before bed
Is it something scientific, is it brain chemistry, or am I just a product of myself, of panic and ennui
And how long is it before you forget who you are
While some talent spider tells you that you’re too fat to be a star
Or a critic says your record sounds too much like your boyfriend Even though you wrote every fucking riff on the album
You’re too depressing, too obtuse, too aggressive, too aloof
Too demanding, too uptight, don’t live up to any hype
Either too old to be relevant or too young to be resonant
Addictions picking off mates like they’re all social experiments
All the kicking, all the pricks, all the leaches, snakes and ticks
All the hours on the road, lonely brain bound to implode,
Psyche shrieking out the back, bills are waiting in a growing stack
You’re working like a dog but you got nothing to show for that
You gotta help me understand what you do
I’ve never known anyone that keeps everything as straight as you
There was a time I had all in my fist
Now I’m seriously considering becoming a metrologist
7. THE THINGS THAT I NOW KNOW
Terra Nullius, my island, my despicable beast
An arch into the ocean as your birth was blocked in breach
And in the ready wild my body and my soul
Divide themselves between you and the blood that’s in my bones
In the early winters there lay slicks upon the flats
From the snow that split from mountains that would thud and puff and crack
The white birds shrieking murder through the drifts of clouds and sparks
And nested in the tallest, thick with scent and dripping bark
In me, my spirit feels unease, a great nausea
That ties my tongue and swells my gut and aches and pulls and tugs
My instinct cannot reconcile the things that I now know
Those strong hands slapped away like children at a bowl
Will I ever know real knowledge, is it even mine to change
I dreamt I saw an answer and a child’s was its face
I am sorry, I am sorry and my children will be too
If I don’t any better with the blood that’s in my bones
8. Little Fears, Little Loves
I was around my part of town
Kicking up dust with my restless feet
A lot of time to think, even more time to drink
As I watched the autumn devour the heat
Little fears, little loves
It’s never enough
Now I’m getting sick from this lukewarm blood
When we see who we are
Every secret, every scar
It’s only that moment that we’ll feel love
Sydney’s on fire, so pretty it hurts my eyes
The jewel in our ever rotting crown
I gotta get out, is that what it’s about
If I stand on the edges I ain’t coming down
Gotta sail through the fear
Push off from the pier
And watch as the headlands open up
When we see who we are
Every secret, every scar
It’s only that moment that we’ll feel love
I was alone, never felt better though
I was hoping the conversation wouldn’t end
Like a bird from above, you swept me up
And we hung on the thermals, wings outstretched
Gotta sail through the fear
Push off from the pier
And watch as the headlands open up
When we see who we are
Every secret, every scar
It’s only that moment that we’ll feel love
Little fears, little loves
It’s never enough
Now I’m getting sick from this lukewarm blood
When we see who we are
Every secret, every scar
It’s only that moment that we’ll feel love
9. NO PARTING WORDS
Here is morning and I don’t rest like I used to
I’ve been dreaming of you, I dreamt I lost you in a snowstorm
Pathetic heart is aching for your body
My angry mind is screaming to stay away
Watched myself, there was shame in my reflection
Clean my hands and eyes, take them from my body, I don’t need them
And in the dark I see a light is coming
I’ve been crouching here so long I don’t remember if I can walk
I’ll be happy, I’ll lie down in gentle pastures
Where I tasted sunlight, it was sweet, it made me silent
And while we wait let’s be kind to one another
No second thoughts, no parting words, we’ve done that enough
10. MY HISTORY
I want to tell you about some of those nights
You say I never talk about my history
Close your eyes, can you smell the rain on the reserve dripping through the pines
Winter, Melbourne, end of the nineties
Me and my friends, my girls, my family
Our worlds were dark, we were each others beauty
The rough of the red school jumper on my arm
The catch of each drag sparking deep in my chest
We sat at tables made from crates in a garage
I’d only take half at a time, I was always too scared
That’s when I found a friend to give me rest from the exhaustion
What do you mean there’s something that can take this pain away
The club in the city we could never find again
Marked by projected light out on the bluestone
Conspiratorial on leather, dirty speed in our veins
Emerging into the watery light of the morning
The first tram, shift change and the waiting for sleep under doonas
With my friends, my girls, my family
Pitch black skies between villages out in the Ruhr
Negative ten, ice in the air, sickly hot in this three-door Audi
So high, rushing past the sparkles out on the snowy fields
The thud of the bass underneath my body
And a bed, not mine, not my boyfriend’s
When he was out of my sight and I was out of my mind
I was dumb but I wasn’t bad, I was endlessly angry
I missed my mum and then I missed my Dad
I kept pouring it in to fill me
And I’m afraid still as then of all the things that are in me
I am humbled by my history
We do what we can to feel loved, to feel safe, to feel wanted
And we fail, we get it wrong, we grab and we reach, we hurt the ones we love
I miss the oblivion sometimes like it’s an old friend
Anger is sadness, control ends in madness, we all have it in us, we are everything at once
We are all the same