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Songs From The Bottom of a Hilltop - Downhill Side

by Sven Olsen's Brutal Canadian Love Saga

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1.
Housetruck 04:41
Housetruck Gave up my job at the Provident Fund Daddy dipped out on the Sec Def* fun Started living with Sophie Thingy Her hairy dog and her leaky dinghy Made the front page in Sunday News You try singing in my shoes! Bought some sandals from Trade Aid Dyed my clothes with cans of Raid U can’t touch this Could this be love? Love, love, love, love Could this be love? Love, love, love, love U can’t touch this There’s a housetruck we call home No tv or telephone Feast on mung beans and brown rice Raising dogs and body lice U can’t touch this Back to nature where we are Leave the cell phone in the car Leave the three piece in the boot We don’t need clothes to find our roots U can’t touch this Lied about my job at the Provident drek I’m still sporting a drip-dry neck Whatever happened to Sophie Thingy her hairy dog and her leaky dinghy? I can’t find them Could this be love? Love, love, love, love If this was love, where did it go? I can’t find it. *Secretary of Defence
2.
20 Years In Television 20 years in television. Fuck me. Fuck you. And the horse that brought us to this well-appointed wilderness Turn off the enlightenment Cos the last thing we need round here Is you and your bright ideas Ruining it for all of us There’s not enough There’s much too much There’s not enough There’s much too much There’s not enough … for any of us now I’ve taken these dreams of mine And shoved them where the sun don’t shine In an abattoir of time-demolishing machinery I’ve taken the talent I had And turned it into something sad like some bearded, humbled hack talking up the scenery. There’s not enough There’s much too much There’s not enough There’s much too much There’s not enough … days in the week to save me.
3.
Looking Back at the Charles Fergusson Building with the Benefit of Hindsight and a 2,500 Tonne Vessel 1989 on the ferry leaving town felt necessary In a mouth-shaped harbour the teeth recede out to the lips where the waters heave Through the Heads … Down to the Sounds shudder of engines turn the screws of reinvention arrive in Picton reward your boredom walk the wreck there’s no restoring Round the wreck … Remember how it felt like fiction Stepping outside of our lives He said he was Jesus of Picton And she believed him Oh she believed him … for a while In her head …
4.
Export-Led Recovery I was basking in the glow of an export-led recovery I was sitting by the window When my whole life flashed in front of me So I let the sheep explode til there was you, when you were hugging me I’d been hearing all this fuss About a ‘Knowledge-based Society’ But when I thought of folks like us I couldn’t picture it for the life of me But we had knowledge once and now the word has just reminded me How we once strolled arm in arm Looking straight up at the galaxy It reminded me of bars where the sunlight’s just a fallacy But Grey Lynn has its charms and, for a night, it really flattered me With its wide roads and its palms And a hint of dereliction where a frangipani’ed calm slowly spreads in all directions You led me by the arm to parts I cannot mention So we lay down in the weeds making walls of thighs and knees Oh my quarter acre dream … had a Pavlova complexion I was basking in the glow of an export-led recovery I was sitting by the window when an awful thought occurred to me Remember when the stars conjured more than just astronomy?
5.
Town Belt 03:30
The Town Belt Well I lived in a city of hills but I found a cure for its ills When the township down below was reduced to an orange glow But when all was said and done we began to move as one In the town belt, In the town belt There were indentation marks All over your arms There were indentation marks All over your arms Well, we lived with a millionaire we used to sleep in the basement there It was many years later on that the pennies began to drop It was freezing in the grass but we were warming to the task But it’s hard to keep so still when you’re lying down uphill in the town belt, in the town belt Oh the grass was leaving marks all over your arms Yes the grass was leaving marks all over your arms
6.
Flies in the Letterbox It didn’t work after a while Neither did you Convinced of your genius You promptly shot through I sent you love letters Almost every day And fixed my letterbox With a deathly gaze I thought love would travel round so easy But all I did was fall in love with that letterbox I shared that letterbox With a platinum blonde She had a rear that stretched from Bulls to beyond She had a giant dog the neighbours loved to feed So in our letterbox They’d pile their gravy beef I thought love would travel round so easy But all I did was fall in love with that letterbox That meat would sit all day rotting in the sun And like my heavy heart it would start to run I’d find your love letters in a pool of blood Til each time I opened them I felt like throwing up There were always flies on your love letters I blamed the dog but it was just a sign of things to come There were always flies on your love letters I blamed the dog but it was just a sign of things to come ...
7.
Pizza Hall 04:38
Pizza Hall This pizza hall’s so tall You’d need an astronaut to reach the ceiling And it’s no accident the thought’s appealing Cos the way I’m feeling brings me down This flag that we’ve unfurled It should be striking up just like a mains’l But there’s no hiding how she finds it painful And the way she’s feeling brings me down Is there anyone here who has felt this way? Is there anyone here who can help persuade? Is there anyone here to commiserate? Cos the way I’m feeling brings me down The angels heard my call And now they’re polishing the paint that’s peeling But are we worshipping or merely kneeling? cos the way I’m feeling brings me down Is there anyone here who has felt this way? Is there anyone here who can help persuade? Is there anyone here to commiserate? Cos the way I’m feeling brings me down I don’t know the right things to say to you I don’t know the right things to say I don’t know the right things to say to you I don’t know the right things to say … hey, hey
8.
The Veronica Bell I was the same age as Jesus when he died He’d done so much and I’d barely tried I was stuck in some fluorescent hell My time machine stalled, it didn’t go H G Well But then one day she came to work She stood out like ore on the earth She was smart, sharp, bubbling and bright I’d been like that once, but something had died And the sun hung low in the sky And the clouds went scuddering by And the cups in the kitchen grew ears just to listen As if it was all part of some grand design So one night, when I was alone I sat down and composed you a note I’d forgotten all the power and the beauty of words Because I’d spent my life killing them, now ain’t that absurd? Then one night straight after work We drank so much, the boundaries they blurred In some dark room where everything went out focus Little Miss Perfect took all her clothes off And the moon hung low in the sky And the clouds went scuddering by My time machine spluttered and burst into flames So we just lay there smoking in the charred remains When she came back from the snows in Japan I could tell that she was a changed man In a menacing voice with gaps to convince me She took all my words and turned them to mincemeat So we drove to the Veronica Bell It saved Napier once, now it saved me as well Oh we stood on the foreshore where the Norfolks are lined and the smell of fresh phosphate waters your eyes You could have left me for dead But we made love for three days instead All the bed ash and bum nuts will be there forever It’s a wonder the Cobb and Co doesn’t charge extra And the sun hung low in the sky And the clouds went scuddering by All the beauty and truth that exists in this world is wasted on youth and old Marsden girls

about

The second half of this double album. You get both in the box set.

credits

released November 13, 2010

written and recorded by Nigel Beckford and Clyde Clemett. Mixed by Dale Cotton. Book designed by Jacob Perkins and Fleur Wickes.

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Sven Olsen's Brutal Canadian Love Saga Wellington

Our special limited edition fly swat and book deluxe combo has almost sold out. We found a dozen. The Almanac is an illustrated book and six albums worth of songs about a typical year of life in New Zealand, land of laid back catastrophe. You can also download this digital audio Everest here for next to nothing. Kapai! ... more

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