Today’s News

A page from a newspaper, its neat middle crease still intact, is being blown by a winter wind down the tram tracks on Fitzroy Street. When it lands it creates a different wind resistance each time, sometimes wide open and immediately blown on again, other times folded, static until the wind changes direction slightly, catches a corner, sends it on its way.

I wonder if the paper feels it is standing its ground, cursing its inability to adapt to the changing wind and hold on, or if it feels it is flying towards a wondrous future, cursing its inability to adapt to the changing wind and fly faster?

And that's today's news.

Parkstreet

Please Please Please Please (song lyrics)

Part of the art of songwriting is the ability to place oneself in another's reality. For this song I had to imagine myself in the mind of a sad, middle aged man with a sex life so disastrous that he has resorted to asking nicely for it. Of course this was a long stretch for me. I'm told that when I perform this song I appear tragic and desperate but that's only because I'm a brilliant, brilliant actor. 

The song is performed with a jaunty ska feel so it isn't as sad as it looks in print.


Please Please Please Please.

Please, please please please sleep with me.
Won't you please, darling sleep with me?

I'll buy you a drink and I'll score you a smoke,
You'll be in the mood once you've had a toke, 
If you need some coke well I know this bloke,
Yeah whatever it takes to give your engine a stoke.

Won't you please, please please please sleep with me?
Please, baby sleep with me.

Believe that I'm cute or do it out of pity,
Will it help if I tell you that you're pretty?
I'll use all my best lines, my charm and my witty,
'Cos I'm so alone in this hot cold city.

So please, please please please sleep with me.
Won't you please, darling sleep with me?

I don't expect no Karma Sutra atheletics,
No pornographic calisthenics.
No silly rock star twelve hour tantrics,
Just a sweet tune, old fiddle, old dog, old tricks.

Please, please please please sleep with me.
Please, won't you sleep with me?

You're here alone.
I'm here alone.
Come on baby baby throw this old dog a bone.
Please.

I've got my own hair.
I've got my own teeth.
Will it help if I say I'll wear a sheath?
Please.

Please won't you let me take you to bed?
Or you can take me 'cos I'm easily lead.
Together we can ride in the two person sled.
You bring the tail, I'll bring the head.

So please, please please please sleep with me.
Won't you please, darling sleep with me?

Parkstreet.

God’s Nightlight

Night after night Krimba the tree frog shivered in terror, hiding silently on an upper branch, ever watchful for nocturnal predators, ever ready to flee. Krimba was tired. A frog needs some sleep.

One night, whilst fleeing frantically through the forest, he stumbled upon a colony of glow worms, and noticed the predators of the night refused to approach their soft light. An idea came to Krimba, like the switching on of a glow worm. 

One day he employed his nimble fingers at the task of constructing a small cage out of twigs from his tree. At dusk he ventured to the glow worm colony, collected a handful of the docile creatures, took them back to his tree where they kept the predators at bay, all night. 

After two nights the glow worms faded, so Krimba ate them and captured some more. Within a year all the other tree frogs had followed his idea, another year later the glow worms were being bred for both protection and food. The predators dwindled, starved of their favourite prey, the tree frogs thrived, well slept and energetic. 

Thousands of years later the tree frogs, evolved to enormous size and brilliant intelligence, remembered their illustrious ancestor, honored him as a god, Lord Krimba. His image was in every home, with his most famous words inscribed below, "Let there be light".

Parkstreet

Ko-Fi

Illustration by Jen

Park Street Lament

It's a lament, but not for lost love.

I'm sitting with my back against the wall, sitting on the faded, weary, orange brown carpet of a rented apartment. It's an empty apartment. I've let myself in with a key I’ll leave behind when I’ve gathered the last of my possessions.

It's a lament,

But not for lost love, rather for the thrilling sweetness of new love that too quickly becomes faded, weary, like the orange brown carpet of a rented apartment.

It's a lament.

Parkstreet

Ko-Fi

The Song Of Travel And Redemption (The Josie Song)

I've scattered all my childhood ashes,
And buttoned up my love lined coat, and I've,
Updated in my silent fashion,
Launched my little sailing boat, and I've,

Been singing a travelling song,
Now I'm singing a loving song,
And I won't leave again,
Unless she comes along.
Unless she comes along with me.

I've written my last will and playbook,
And straightened up my fearless tie, and I've,
Hung my soul out on a fish hook,
I've puckered up and I've kissed the sky, and I've,

Been singing a travelling song,
Now I'm singing a loving song,
And I won't leave again,
Unless she comes along.
Unless she comes along with me.

Come along with me, you and me, we could sail away together.

I've swum up from the darkest places,
Eaten from the street of life, and I've,
Looked in the eyes of all my faces,
I'm gonna' make that girl my wife, and I've,

Been singing a travelling song,
Now I'm singing her a loving song,
And I won't leave again,
Unless she comes along.

Unless she comes along with me.

Come along with me, you and me, we could sail away together, or we could just stay home, come along with me, come along with me.



Parkstreet 

Ko-fi

Bedsit

Three bar orange glow

Corn chip crumbs in white sour cream

Bedsit lonely night

Parkstreet

3 Beats, 2 Hearts - Song Lyrics

A friend of mine says he believes firmly in the institution of marriage, because he gets high paying gigs out of it. On the whole I agree with him, and having played at enough weddings I find the entire fiasco disturbing more often than not. The one moment that always makes me happy is the waltz, when the couple dances in front of the crowd, then are slowly joined by family, then friends. Symbolic and beautiful. I always imagine that men and women approach that dance from very different places.

This song is, of course, a waltz. When I record it I'll start it mellow, guitar and voice, gradually bring in the full skiffle band, double bass, stand up drum kit, fiddle, piano accordion, trumpet, until it is wailing, a triumphant declaration of eternal love.

3 Beats, 2 Hearts

He never danced a waltz in his life,
He has to tonight now he's taken a wife.
The people are watching,
The couple who're waltzing,
Dancing for the first time as husband and wife.

She's only waltzed with girlfriends for laughs,
Been saving this dance for her other half.
The people are watching,
The couple who're waltzing,
Dancing for the first time as husband and wife.

Every year on this night,
Like this moment sublime,
They'll hold each other tight,
And dance in three four time.

Dance in three four time together.

She glows like a bride, his chest fills with pride,
Three beats, two hearts, 'til death do them part.
The people are watching,
The couple who're waltzing,
They're dancing for the first time as husband and wife.

Every year on this night,
A moment sublime,
They'll hold each other tight,
And dance in three four time.

The people are watching,
The couple who're waltzing,
Dancing for the first time as husband and wife.
So get up and join them all you family and friends,
For this is the dance that never ends.

Every year on this night,
As this moment sublime,
They'll hold each other tight,
And dance dance dance.

Ad lib.
They'll dance in three four time,
Dance in three four time together.
'Cos it's a wedding dance, an anniversary dance,
A dance of friendship, so get up on the dance floor all you people.
It's a dance of life, a dance of love.
And it goes one two three, one two three,
Yeah, that's how it goes.




Parkstreet