1. |
Cheddar Road
03:14
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Cheddar Road
by Barry Dickins with Leo Francis
Cheddar Road my spiritual load
Towards the moon you love to go
I have followed you to Mars
Now all you are is cars!
In the days of yore
Around the genesis of Reservoir
Someone dreamt you up I suppose
Unreal you are Cheddar Road!
Oh I love you Cheddar Road!
In the forties about that time
They put in the old pipeline
The pure genius that truly showed!
People walked their cows up it
Admiring the plops of shit
It was rather primitive then
I kicked the shit with my dad Len!
Oh I love you Cheddar Road!
I used to see The Highland Fling
Met a lady who knew Errol Flynn
The overheated bus it croaked
Up Cheddar Road just for the joke!
I miss seeing its deep pot holes
In its splendid puddles some tadpoles
All the men were Chris or Noel
How I love Thee Cheddar Road!
Oh I love you Cheddar Road!
Unreal you are Cheddar Road!
We waited for the bus all night
The summer moon burning like a light
People out in it were shelling peas!
I still see all the pioneers trudge
Up Cheddar Road in the ooze and mud
All the way from Lalor they have come
To walk the pipeline everyone!
Oh I love you Cheddar Road!
Unreal you are Cheddar Road!
Oh I love you Cheddar Road!
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2. |
Vietnam War in Reservoir
03:34
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Vietnam War in Reservoir
by Barry Dickins with Cat Canteri
Vietnam War was on
I feared the most for my brother John
He didn’t wanna go to war
Bad enough living in Reservoir
Reservoir, Reservoir
Bad enough living in Reservoir
All revolved around your birthday
That’s when you got that Purple Haze
If you were unlucky in that jam
They sold your body to Uncle Sam
Reservoir, Reservoir
Bad enough living in Reservoir
Didn’t wanna go to war
Vietnam War in Reservoir
In the month of John’s birthday
We checked the letterbox everyday
If he got the call up card
We’d hide in a foxhole in our backyard
I was in the call up too
Checking the letterbox, checking the letterbox
Dived my frighten paw right in
But dodged a ticket to Ho Chi Mihn
Dodged a ticket to Ho Chi Mihn
Harold Holt had no fucking clue
Don’t wanna Waltz Matilda for you
We didn’t wanna go to war
Bad enough living in Reservoir, Bad enough living in Reservoir
Reservoir, Reservoir
Bad enough living in Reservoir
He didn’t wanna go to war
Bad enough living in Reservoir
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3. |
Bus to Dundas
04:41
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Bus to Dundas
by Barry Dickins with Danny Walsh and Emma Peel
Get on the bus
Get on the bus,
Get on the bus
To Dundas!
Abandoning Keon Park
In the intricate dark
The old bus went to Dundas Street
I still see the bunion feet
In the melancholy
People wet without a brolly
Up chugged the asthmatic bus
Driven by an apprentice
10 folks on it
We stop, more hop on
Up the back a man named Jack
Making out he’s got a heart attack
Git on!
(Get on the bus!)
Git on
(to Dundas!)
A couple of farmers sound asleep
Chewin' garlic, make you weep
Sitting next to barrels of milk
We ner’more see their ilk
Four miles of ruthless quag
Half way down a couple of hogs
their blonde eyelashes
Fluttering at 2 swaggies ‘taches
all the hogs, and thru the bogs
The gears got caught up in their cogs
And the young driver had to double clutch
Yeh I don’t like his chances much
Git on...!
At last he got off the mud
veering right off Cheddar Road
Lightning comes and so does thunder
On the bitumen we rumbles
There’s a farmer with a goose
Sleeping under paper news
a soldier with the horrors
He’s been on the bus for hours!
Snoozing on me father;s arm
As we sail past the lit-up farm
And past where they sell the ice
In great big blocks it looks so nice!
A bob it cost to get the ice
you whack a bob in once or twice
A glittering block comes out
On your toes it lands, you shout!
Exhausted Ancient warrior
Down High street where it’s stonier
Swish puddles so enormous
The drunk, he says ‘Tremendous!’
It stops for once at Bell St
The dairy farmers to their feet
Roll their bottles down the aisle
In Bell st where they smoke a while
We’re heading now to Dundas street...
Dad wakes me from me sleep..
And the driver said..
..Git off!
Get off the bus
Get off he bus,
Get off the bus
at Dundas!
Git on...! etc.
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4. |
Favourite Cardigan
02:44
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Favourite Cardigan
by Barry Dickins with Cat Canteri
Was it into heaven or into Rezza?
I take a look
For my dear father reading his books
He’s back again my darling Len
Reading those pages again and again
Back again my darling Len
Reading them pages again and again hey!
He’s not a ghost but really there
Reading his book in his favorite chair
Into his PJ’s after his bath
Into the garden to water the plants
Peaceful, content my dear old friend
He never died my sweet father Len
Gentle and restful my dear old friend E
Hanging in Rez with my father Len hey!
Now I got his favourite cardigan on
I’m turnin’ those pages I blink and his gone
Waking from a dream we were
Taking a walk down Edwardes St hey
Now I got his favourite cardigan on
I’m turnin’ those pages I blink and his gone
Waking from a dream we were
Taking a walk down Edwardes St
Taking a walk down Edwardes St hey!
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5. |
The Broadway Barbarian
03:27
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The Broadway Barbarian
by Barry Dickins/ Danny Walsh
Oh he boasted tow-rope arms
Had a mighty back on him
Scratches on his hairy shoulders
From the claws of screaming children
And he crossed his ivory card
While kids wept in his dreadful chair
For all the rotten ones were doomed
before your gore just went everywhere
You just had no say in what he done
He’d charge your Father a Guinea each
Pulled all your teeth out, one by one
Till you had no bloody teeth!
Mr Bertram,
The Broadway Barbarian!
Chewing bloody cotton wool
Our spirits felt so poor
A mouth of silver too much to bear
Spat out all our ‘filluns’ in Reservoir!
Radioactive zombie processions
where the gravel lawns are mowed
with blood dripping from gummy chasms
Oh how we glowed in Borrie road!
Impossible to eat your tea
a lemonade-straw-from your mother
swearing you’ll never eat another ginger nut
But Aspro…you want another!
Take a rainy stroll down Broadway today
But keep your eyes down in the gutter
Like a miner panning for his luck
You might find our little bits of silver.!
Mr Bertram,
The Broadway Barbarian!
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6. |
Gunny Thomas
06:21
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7. |
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The Old Reservoir Baptist Church
by Barry Dickins with Danny Walsh
There never was better Show and Tell
Than the old Baptist church where we all went to Hell
The old Reservoir Baptist Church burnt
You forever with lessons well learnt
To start with it was built on a lean
All out of alignment the Devil in between
The Devil in Rezza was what folks believed
They’d be better off believing in Fairy Queens
It felt weird prayin’ in that Old Wreck
If you e’a fidgeted they’d be right at your neck
I loved Christ and felt hypnotized
Because they said (that) he was in front of our eyes
But all I seen was real ugly blokes
Determined not to make up any jokes
What they dished up was plenty of pain
And booked Jesus Christ to turn up again!
Flock, you’re all gonna burn!
The Reverend Stelling
Was about as much fun
As a hornet stinging you fair in the bum
He screeched and he screamed about Rezza going up in flames
He said if you laughed ‘you should be ashamed’
What I loved were the words of the hymns
Attractive they were as hot dim sims
I memorized each single Love word
To go straight to hell just never occurred
Such pretty young faces looking for hate
If God is so violent then he isn’t me mate
If Jesus was awful forget about him
All of this teachings, just pull the pin!
Flock, you’re all gonna burn!
Flock, you’re all gonna burn!
The flock were just awful I have to say
Hating the earth in their own crazy way
I loved the wildflowers asleep in the hay
They were all hard those people as the shell of a cray
They were just all really aunties and uncles
Who had to withstand their vast carbuncles
Who, though life was against them
I hated the way they hauked up their phlegm!
My Brother John and me ran home so fast
Seen our dad with his trimmers on the path
We were so glad to see him at long legged last
He was much more fun than their paranoid ghost
Flock, you’re all gonna burn!
Flock, you’re all gonna burn!
There never was better Show and Tell
Than the old Baptist church where we all went to Hell
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8. |
Daddy's Shout
03:41
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Daddy’s Shout
by Barry Dickins with Leo Francis
One poor night our Daddy died
But not thank Christ his beautiful mind
It went on and on forever
Memorised like Easter weather!
I arrived to find him dead
In his gardening shorts Amen!
And all his tubes came out
I thought I heard a tremendous shout!
He was sitting in his chair
Sulphurous face and silver hair
Like some little light went out
All those years our Daddy's Shout!
Mum hasn't spoken for a year
Finding it tough to dislodge a tear
Hard to say if she loved him or not
Sweet were the words our mum forgot
All those hurtful drops of blood
His face was down and then some
His lovely blue eyes all shut
It felt like God had left the hut
He was sitting in his chair
Sulphurous face and silver hair
Like some little light went out
All those years our Daddy's Shout!
He once bought mum a rooster
He wished she kissed him like she used to
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9. |
Get Your Own Phone
08:48
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10. |
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Errol Flynn in Edwardes Street
by Barry Dickins with Danny Walsh
There’s a coffee shop in Edwardes street
Where old Italians rest their tired feet
Where Errol Flynn himself comes in
Desperate for a glass of gin
Errol Flynn
He’s walked up and down that Old Broadway
Looking more like one hundred I have to say
Missing most of his famed panache
Missing most of his natty moustache
Errol Flynn, Where you been?
Errol Flynn in Edwardes Street
Oh that is a thing to beat
Errol Flynn in our coffee shop
Hanging out for one with the lot!
Errol feels slightly out of place
And doesn’t act with all his grace
Swings from a chandelier
To the owner creates some tears
Errol Flynn
Errol doesn’t understand cappuccino
Asks if anyone’s seen Al Martino
Sick of swinging on their chandelier
Decides if he needs a chronic beer!
Errol Flynn, where you been?
So he walks up Edwardes Street
Sick and tired of his old feet
Puts the cutlass into a copper
Falls over like a crook grasshopper!
Errol Flynn, where you been?
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11. |
The Sh*t Carter's Hat
03:15
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The Shit Carter’s Hat
by Barry Dickins with Danny Walsh
The shit carters creak up our road
Completely propped up with their foul load
They had a hole in the cart back then
And carted the waste like a friend
I’ve often cried just where I’ve sat
Flat as a shit carter’s hat
There’s nothing in life as flat as that
They tried to have some dignity
Picking up what we’d had for tea
I sometimes saw the tins capsize
I felt sorry for the sewerage guys
I’ve often cried just where I’ve sat
Flat as a shit carter’s hat
There’s nothing in life as flat as that
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12. |
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The Song of Donath Reserve
by Barry Dickins with Danny Walsh and Emma Peel
Somehow it were never novel
To go up The Oval
Dried out fried out dusty paddock
Community headache
That’s all it was in times of frost
It was simply there because
Nowhere else to feel rotten
Nowhere else to feel rotten
Nowhere else to feel rotten!
Mud and prickles misbegotten
Nowhere else to feel rotten
It seemed to go on forever
Ingrown toenails, boot for leather!
Nowhere else to feel rotten..
In time of summer pterodactyls
Munched imaginary awful prickles
When you did a lap or two
A tyrannosaurs came in view
Two miles of crocodiles
How it seemed after a while
Goalposts were our ghosts
They are still The Oval’s guests!
Nowhere else to feel rotten...
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Cheddar Road All-Stars Reservoir, Australia
The Cheddar Road All-Stars project is a collaboration between Reservoir-based songwriters Leo Francis (The Rechords), Cat Canteri (Kutcha Edwards), Justin Bernasconi, Danny Walsh (Danny Walsh Banned) and Emma Peel (PBS FM), and prolific Australian playwright and long-time Reservoir resident, Barry Dickins. It also features an array of special guest performers. ... more
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