The Ballad of Rio Tinto

Digging up Australia and moving it to China

To build your laptop chassis and a copper sheathed vagina

Buying up the Stone Age places for a couple of billion dollars

They’ll have a little money but a homeland that’s much smaller

So fire up all your furnaces your factories and fantasies

Leave the West to wallow in our pre-apocalyptic bankruptcy

I’m glad salvation’s come to manage our dependency

We’ve replaced those economics with some good old fashioned treachery

Shareholders get rich now and the guys all get a beer

Some spanking new diseases and a glittering career

Thanks to global industrials for inventions, plans and deeds

And selling us more products that no one really needs.

spider moon

there once was an enterprising spider

who built a web from the earth to the moon

I guess that she won't be back here

anytime soon

You can never tell

when he died he was dead and gone

so we explored his house around

dead memories and screwed up stuff

screwed up stuff screwed down

rooms filled with cobwebs

and all the clocks are silent

hidden dusty dramas 

exhausted appetites' disquiet 

tattered comics from the sixties

a collection of women's shoes

christmas decorations

half empty bottles of booze

note books and diaries

Bird's Custard powder packets

amplifiers and audio devices

a quilted smoking jacket

dusty Camaro in the garage

set up on stolen bricks

greasy engines and accidents

and a box of witchcraft sticks

a bin full of cigar butts

letters to the Pope

survival gear and condensed milk

a stash of dessicated dope

they didn't find his body 

just traces of his mind

it's on Ebay now or in the dump

things you have to leave behind

spontaneous combustion

a strange way to go

abducted by aliens

or buried in the snow

plastic bag upon his head

tangerine in his mouth

his girlfriend said he loved her

but I'll always have my doubts

some people go to heaven

others explore their hell

what you leave remains a mystery

no one can never can tell

Golden Meanings

Your wife's so glad you've buggered off

The husband's happy you've quit your job

Now we can freely say what we couldn't say

In the great golden meaning of the day

Religion is a crock of shit

Nothing more you can do with it

Everybody's said what they had to say

With the great golden meaning of today

So here's your life and here's your fate

You start to live just a little too late

The dawn of something gets in the way

It's the great golden meaning of today

Roll up and buy a ticket

Some paradise awaits

Don't ask me what to make of it

I'll just increase the rates

Don't ask for explanation

Don't ask for guides or books

Stare into space and breathe in

Keep eyes closed you can't look

And take that medication

To take bad thoughts away

Your half way outside nowhere's

Golden meaning of today.

Somewhere in the flow

My father kept their wedding cake in the freezer

After the funeral he gave it to the gardener

But there was never a perfect person around

Just half a devil and half and angel in you

But we flow together, like water

Until I can't tell you from me

Let your brother down, let your sister go

Take the long way round, ever in the flow

She is like a tree, she shelters me

So I lie here, in this shade

Help each other, love everyone

Every ray of light you count and forgive

I had no faith but you knew all along

Were you afraid? Really afraid?

Let your brother down, let your sister go

Take the long way round, ever in the flow

We all lose something along the way

Gloves and scarves and memories

Things turned over and down

Drawers with forgotten contents

Journeys we no longer need to make

Hats and coats and memories

We all lose something along the way

Let your brother down, let your sister go

Take the long way round, ever in the flow

Somewhere in the flow.