The Song That Took Two Years

I finished the song that has taken two years to write, today! It's song number 7.

It was a song I started under the apple tree of my last West Brunswick house. It was summer and it started on the banjo with a set of quite dramatic chords with a G followed by a B7 - think Ray Charles, "Georgia" or Peter Allen's "Still call Australia Home" sort of and countless other songs including West Brunswick's Song Number 7.

One of the first lines was "West Brunswick's got a road to Sydney."

It's a love song that shows how my heart has been torn between West Brunswick, where, until recently my daughter and I lived, and Sydney, where my Viking Warrior resides.

It's been a bloody hard song to get to work. Holding the intention of the song, without being too introspective and indulgent took a lot of drafts. And using those chords in an understated way in the chorus. I don't know whether I actually achieved it, but here's a draft recording.

I'm losing my voice and haven't quite got the guitar part together but when you hear the album, you'll remember where it came from. Just wanted to share a raw, straight from the pen, fresh one. As if you were sitting in my lounge room and I'm showing you what I've just done.

Here it is, just press play. Hope you can hear the rain in the background. Sorry about the computer noise - no idea how to filter that out. You'll have to turn it down too.

How to Hoik a Haiku and Spit out a Song

 I don't have a dominant sense. Some people have a tendency to be either more visually, aurally or kinaesthetically orientated. Not me, I got 'em all in equal portions.  This means that I often get quite disorientated with sensory overload. My world is a noisy place. There's just too much to look at, hear, and experience at any one time. So, I am always looking for ways to still this busy mind of mine.

One of my poetry teachers, taught me one way. Write Haiku.

Haiku is a Japanese miniature form of poetry. Three lines, no more than 17 syllables. No metaphor or personification or any other clever poetic conceit. You simply write what is.

One afternoon, a few years ago, this poetry teacher organised a Gingko, which is a walk to collect Haiku. I had never been on one before. We went to the Botanic Gardens and The Shrine of Remembrance in St Kilda Road. We stopped at various locations around the grounds and wrote Haiku.

I found it fiendishly difficult.  It took quite a while for my mind to stop looking for metaphor and meaning and simply observe what was there. Once I got there, I began to see the world afresh.

Pardon the metaphor but it was as if I'd had a really satisfying cough after a throaty smoke (not that I smoke these days). Here's some of the work that I hoiked up that day:

shrine forecourt

a soldier stands by the flame

smoking

in the crypt

exit sign

above the door

grey city skyline

the pine tree

is evergreen                                                                                                                                                                                                    

They're not the greatest Haiku's in the world but when I got home that night, I felt more alert and my mind felt sharper than usual. The Gingko had inspired me to try it again, perhaps around West Brunswick. I imagined what I might write about from my neighbourhood. I started jotting down some of those imaginary observations, and before you knew it, I'd spat out a song! Here it is:

(NB: I don't have a speech impediment, just dodgy video sound!)

West Brunswick

Standing on the over pass in winter

The icy wind will slap you as it blows

The cars rush to the gorgeous city

West Brunswick’s not the pretty from this road

On the local creek bed made of concrete

Philosophers leave words in thick black paint

Saying, “Dream as if you’ll live forever

And live as if you’ll die tomorrow

As I lie awake on lonely nights

I hear the rumble of the 55

And the braking trucks on their freeway drive

A woman screams, “You killed my life.”

The buses don’t run east to west on Sunday

Old ladies and their gentleman stay home

Waiting at the garden gate

For someone walking by to say, “Hello.”

The houses all get sold off at a profit

Commission flats defy the market boom

But for all the talk of free for all

What cost of living in four tiny rooms

As I lie awake on lonely nights

Creatures rustle in the leaves outside

And icy wind takes its freeway ride

Qantas plane is on its midnight flight

And the braking trucks

The screaming wives

The rumble of the 55

Rushing to the gorgeous city

West Brunswick’s not that pretty

West Brunswick’s not that pretty

A Moonee Ponds Creek Dream Boat

Today I've been working on song Number 8 even though I haven't finished song Number 7 yet.  I know! Finish one before you start the next. Naaah! For me, making an album is like completing a jigsaw puzzle, doesn't matter where you start, eventually you get there.

So here's the story so far about The Dream Boat of Moonee Ponds Creek:

When I was living in West Brunswick, for a short time, I had a thing for a man from New Zealand. He was very tall, with a soft, cheeky accent and a pair of RM Williams boots. He came from the North Island. His hobby was boat building. When things got a bit much for him, he'd retreat to his shed and work on his boat.

Well, I thought this was the most romantic thing in the world for a man to do; I imagined a deliciously masculine scene as this remote, solitary man lathed his wooden hull. The only thing more romantic would have been if he was building the boat for me. I, at least, hoped for an invitation to climb aboard and sail away with him, but alas, not to be. Instead, I met a Viking who whisked me away in his orange chariot.

But, I have always liked the idea of sailing the seven seas. Unfortunately, aside from suffering seasickness, the thought often leads me to remember those Jacques Cousteau documentaries we used to watch on Sunday afternoons when there was nothing else on, and how dull I used to find them.

And then that leads me to think about Alby Mangel, who pretty much wore shorts and nothing else.  In each new adventure, he was usually accompanied by a very beautiful young woman who  was there to "help". As a shy, prudish teenager, I found this all deeply embarrassing. 

My pubescent shame then leads me to start thinking about internet dating.

I don't know whether you've ever had a look at any of those internet dating sites, but, if you have, I wonder if you've noticed there's always a wealthy older European man, dressed in white, with a deep tan, who has "specific tastes" and is looking for a woman to accompany him on his yacht that sails for New Zealand, next week.

Which finally brings me back to my Dream Boat:

The day that I walked 'round to Moonee Ponds creek
I stood under the bridge at Albion Street
The ducks were swimming
The sky was grinning
A salty breeze blew
Next thing I knew
I'd tapped out a text
To a man I'd just met
Saying, "Build me a boat
And let's go
Sailing

Of course, sailing down the Moonee Ponds creek would have its challenges, especially when we'd reached the bit at Flemington where there's an expanse of concrete and not much water. But, I reckon that if we followed in the footsteps of the innovative Ben Lexcen, we could modify the keel by fitting some skateboards to the hull. Sorted!

But that's another verse.

Here's a couple of pics of the Bridge and the Creek!

The Albion Street Bridge

                                   

The Moonee Ponds Creek

I'm Gonna Bung it in a Book

I've been writing songs about West Brunswick for sometime now. Years, if the truth be told. Until recently I've lived there 20 of them. Now I live in Coburg, West Brunswick got too expensive. I miss it and have kept writing about it. West Brunswick is still my home.

I didn't really like it at first but then I didn't really like my best mate when I first met her. West Brunswick seemed a little too far from the action of Carlton and Nth Fitzroy where I had been living. But those suburbs were already getting pricey, as cheap student housing was bought by the upwardly mobile, who renovated the life out of the place and, in so doing, made something that had been affordable, out of reach to the locals. Up went the rents and out went the dreamers.

This dreamer, who happened to be pregnant at the time, landed in Hope Street, West Brunswick. Great street to live for an expectant mother. It was a corner place, blonde brick, with a curved front room that caught and amplified the constant roundabout traffic. It had a shared backyard and clothesline and two other flats on the same property. Instant community!

That Hope Street house was the beginning of my love affair with West Brunswick.

The feeling runs so deep that, as well as songs, I've started writing poems and flash faction accounts, which are tiny stories that aren't quite true but close enough, of the places I lived, the people I met and lived with and the tram I rode.

So, I'm gonna bung some of them in a little book and record the suburban songs on a little album.

Then it's into the lounge rooms of local and honorary West Brunswickians to play the songs and tell the stories of my West Brunswick home.

I hope you'll join me as I record the daily work.

Helen x