SOUNDS OF THEN (This Is Australia)
Mark Callaghan

I think I hear the sounds of then, and people talking
The scenes recalled, by minute movement
And songs they fall, from the backing tape
That certain texture, that certain smell.

To lie in sweat, on familiar sheets
In brick veneer on financed beds
In a room, of silent hardiflex
That certain texture, that certain smell
Brings home the heavy days
Brings home the the night time swell.

   Out on the patio, we'd sit
   And the humidity, we'd breathe
   We'd watch the lightning crack over canefields
   And laugh and think, this is Australia.

The block is awkward - it faces west
Long diagonals, and sloping too
And in the distance, through the heat haze
In convoys of silence, the cattle graze
That certain texture, that certain beat
Brings forth the night-time heat.

   Out on the patio, we'd sit
   And the humidity, we'd breathe
   We'd watch the lightning crack over canefields
   Laugh and think that this is Australia.

To lie in sweat, on familiar sheets
In brick veneer on financed beds
In a room of silent hardiflex
That certain texture, that certain smell
Brings forth the heavy days
Brings forth the night-time sweat.

   Out on the patio, we'd sit
   And the humidity, we'd breathe
   We'd watch the lightning crack over canefields
   And laugh and think, this is Australia.

   Out on the patio, we'd sit
   And the humidity, we'd breathe
   We'd watch the lightning crack over canefields
   And laugh and think, this is Australia.

This is Australia etc…...


Mark Callaghan of GANGgajang : wrote this 1985 song about his childhood memories as a recent English immigrant to Bundy (Bundaberg, sub-tropical coastal city in central Queensland) :   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML9h3I5Uktw

WIKI : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounds_of_Then



R-J