Get all 9 Sven Olsen's Brutal Canadian Love Saga releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Tales From The HazMat chapter 2, Tales From The HazMat chapter one, Don't They Know They're Chasing Smoke?, In The Land of Perhaps, The Almanac - Volume 1, The Almanac - Volume 1, The Almanac - Volume 2, Songs From The Bottom Of A Hilltop - Uphill Side, and 1 more.
1. |
Housetruck
04:41
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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
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2. |
20 Years in Television
04:58
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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.
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3. |
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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 …
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4. |
Export-led Recovery
06:07
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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?
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5. |
Town Belt
03:30
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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
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6. |
Flies in the Letterbox
06:12
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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 ...
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7. |
Pizza Hall
04:38
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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
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8. |
The Veronica Bell
08:59
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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
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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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