The second full-length album from Australian singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin, Crushing embodies every possible meaning of its title word. It’s an album formed from sheer intensity of feeling, an in-the-moment narrative of heartbreak and infatuation. And with her storytelling centered on bodies and crossed boundaries and smothering closeness, Crushing reveals how our physical experience of the world shapes and sometimes distorts our inner lives.
“This album came from spending two years touring and being in a relationship, and feeling like I never had any space of my own,” says the Melbourne-based artist. “For a long time I felt like my head was full of fear and my body was just this functional thing that carried me from point A to B, and writing these songs was like rejoining the two.”
The follow-up to her 2016 debut Don’t Let the Kids Win, Crushing finds Jacklin continually acknowledging what’s expected of her, then gracefully rejecting those expectations. As a result, the album invites self-examination and a possible shift in the listener’s way of getting around the world—an effect that has everything to do with Jacklin’s openness about her own experience.
“I used to be so worried about seeming demanding that I’d put up with anything, which I think is common—you want to be chill and cool, but it ends up taking so much of your emotional energy,” says Jacklin. “Now I’ve gotten used to calling out things I’m not okay with, instead of just burying my feelings to make it easier on everyone. I’ve realized that in order to keep the peace, you have to speak up for yourself and say what you really want.”
Produced by Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett, The Drones) and recorded at The Grove Studios (a bushland hideaway built by INXS’ Garry Gary Beers), Crushing sets Jacklin’s understated defiance against a raw yet luminous sonic backdrop. “In all the songs, you can hear every sound from every instrument; you can hear my throat and hear me breathing,” she says. “It was really important to me that you can hear everything for the whole record, without any studio tricks getting in the way.”
On the album-opening lead single “Body,” Jacklin proves the power of that approach, turning out a mesmerizing vocal performance even as she slips into the slightest murmur. A starkly composed portrait of a breakup, the song bears an often-bracing intimacy, a sense that you’re right in the room with Jacklin as she lays her heart out. And as “Body”wanders and drifts, Jacklin establishes Crushing as an album that exists entirely on its own time, a work that’s willfully unhurried.
From there, Crushing shifts into the slow-building urgency of “Head Alone,” a pointed and electrifying anthem of refusal (sample lyric: “I don’t want to be touched all the time/I raised my body up to be mine”).“As a woman, in my case as a touring musician, the way you’re touched is different from your male bandmates—by strangers and by those close to you,” notes Jacklin. On the full-tilt, harmony-spiked “Pressure to Party,” she pushes toward another form of emotional freedom. “When you come out of a relationship, there’s so much pressure to act a certain way,”says Jacklin. “First it’s like, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta take some time for yourself’…but then if you take too much time it’s, ‘You’ve gotta get back out there!’ That song is just my three-minute scream, saying I’m going to do what I need to do, when I need to do it.”Crushing also shows Jacklin’s autonomy on songs like “Convention,” an eye-rolling dismissal of unsolicited advice, presented in elegantly sardonic lyrics (“I can tell you won’t sleep well, if you don’t teach me how to do it right”).
Elsewhere on Crushing, Jacklin brings her exacting reflection to songs on loss. With its transportive harmonies and slow-burning guitar solo, “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You” ponders the heartache in fading affection (“I want your mother to stay friends with mine/I want this feeling to pass in time”). Meanwhile, on “Turn Me Down”—an idiosyncratically arranged track embedded with hypnotic guitar tones—Jacklin gives an exquisitely painful glimpse at unrequited devotion (“He took my hand, said I see a bright future/I’m just not sure that you’re in it”). “That song destroyed me in the studio,” says Jacklin of “Turn Me Down,” whose middle section contains a particularly devastating vocal performance. “I remember lying on the floor in a total state between what felt like endless takes, and if you listen it kind of sounds like I’m losing my mind.” And on “When the Family Flies In,” Jacklin shares her first ever piano-driven piece, a beautifully muted elegy for the same friend to whom she dedicated Don’t Let the Kids Win. “There are really no words to do justice to what it feels like to lose a friend,” says Jacklin. “It felt a bit cheap to even try to write a song about it, but this one came out on tour and it finally felt okay to record.
Despite its complexity, Crushing unfolds with an ease that echoes Jacklin’s newfound self-reliance as an artist. Originally from the Blue Mountains, she grew up on her parents’ Billy Bragg and Doris Day records and sang in musicals as a child, then started writing her own songs in her early 20s. “With the first album I was so nervous and didn’t quite see myself as a musician yet, but after touring for two years, I’ve come to feel like I deserve to be in that space,” she says.
Throughout Crushing, that sense of confidence manifests in one of the most essential elements of the album: the captivating strength of Jacklin’s lyrics. Not only proof of her ingenuity and artistic generosity, Jacklin’s uncompromising specificity and infinitely unpredictable turns of phrase ultimately spring from a certain self-possession in the songwriting process.
“As I was making this album there was sort of a slow loosening of pressure on myself,” Jacklin says. “There’ve been some big life changes for me over the last few years, and I just found it too tiring to try to cover things up with a lot of metaphors and word trickery. I just wanted to lay it all out there and trust that, especially at such a tense moment in time, other people might want to hear a little vulnerability.”
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Bio
The second full-length album from Australian singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin, Crushing embodies every possible meaning of its title word. It’s an album formed from sheer intensity of feeling, an in-the-moment narrative of heartbreak and infatuation. And with her storytelling centered on bodies and crossed boundaries and smothering closeness, Crushing reveals how our physical experience of the world shapes and sometimes distorts our inner lives.
“This album came from spending two years touring and being in a relationship, and feeling like I never had any space of my own,” says the Melbourne-based artist. “For a long time I felt like my head was full of fear and my body was just this functional thing that carried me from point A to B, and writing these songs was like rejoining the two.”
The follow-up to her 2016 debut Don’t Let the Kids Win, Crushing finds Jacklin continually acknowledging what’s expected of her, then gracefully rejecting those expectations. As a result, the album invites self-examination and a possible shift in the listener’s way of getting around the world—an effect that has everything to do with Jacklin’s openness about her own experience.
“I used to be so worried about seeming demanding that I’d put up with anything, which I think is common—you want to be chill and cool, but it ends up taking so much of your emotional energy,” says Jacklin. “Now I’ve gotten used to calling out things I’m not okay with, instead of just burying my feelings to make it easier on everyone. I’ve realized that in order to keep the peace, you have to speak up for yourself and say what you really want.”
Produced by Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett, The Drones) and recorded at The Grove Studios (a bushland hideaway built by INXS’ Garry Gary Beers), Crushing sets Jacklin’s understated defiance against a raw yet luminous sonic backdrop. “In all the songs, you can hear every sound from every instrument; you can hear my throat and hear me breathing,” she says. “It was really important to me that you can hear everything for the whole record, without any studio tricks getting in the way.”
On the album-opening lead single “Body,” Jacklin proves the power of that approach, turning out a mesmerizing vocal performance even as she slips into the slightest murmur. A starkly composed portrait of a breakup, the song bears an often-bracing intimacy, a sense that you’re right in the room with Jacklin as she lays her heart out. And as “Body”wanders and drifts, Jacklin establishes Crushing as an album that exists entirely on its own time, a work that’s willfully unhurried.
From there, Crushing shifts into the slow-building urgency of “Head Alone,” a pointed and electrifying anthem of refusal (sample lyric: “I don’t want to be touched all the time/I raised my body up to be mine”).“As a woman, in my case as a touring musician, the way you’re touched is different from your male bandmates—by strangers and by those close to you,” notes Jacklin. On the full-tilt, harmony-spiked “Pressure to Party,” she pushes toward another form of emotional freedom. “When you come out of a relationship, there’s so much pressure to act a certain way,”says Jacklin. “First it’s like, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta take some time for yourself’…but then if you take too much time it’s, ‘You’ve gotta get back out there!’ That song is just my three-minute scream, saying I’m going to do what I need to do, when I need to do it.”Crushing also shows Jacklin’s autonomy on songs like “Convention,” an eye-rolling dismissal of unsolicited advice, presented in elegantly sardonic lyrics (“I can tell you won’t sleep well, if you don’t teach me how to do it right”).
Elsewhere on Crushing, Jacklin brings her exacting reflection to songs on loss. With its transportive harmonies and slow-burning guitar solo, “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You” ponders the heartache in fading affection (“I want your mother to stay friends with mine/I want this feeling to pass in time”). Meanwhile, on “Turn Me Down”—an idiosyncratically arranged track embedded with hypnotic guitar tones—Jacklin gives an exquisitely painful glimpse at unrequited devotion (“He took my hand, said I see a bright future/I’m just not sure that you’re in it”). “That song destroyed me in the studio,” says Jacklin of “Turn Me Down,” whose middle section contains a particularly devastating vocal performance. “I remember lying on the floor in a total state between what felt like endless takes, and if you listen it kind of sounds like I’m losing my mind.” And on “When the Family Flies In,” Jacklin shares her first ever piano-driven piece, a beautifully muted elegy for the same friend to whom she dedicated Don’t Let the Kids Win. “There are really no words to do justice to what it feels like to lose a friend,” says Jacklin. “It felt a bit cheap to even try to write a song about it, but this one came out on tour and it finally felt okay to record.
Despite its complexity, Crushing unfolds with an ease that echoes Jacklin’s newfound self-reliance as an artist. Originally from the Blue Mountains, she grew up on her parents’ Billy Bragg and Doris Day records and sang in musicals as a child, then started writing her own songs in her early 20s. “With the first album I was so nervous and didn’t quite see myself as a musician yet, but after touring for two years, I’ve come to feel like I deserve to be in that space,” she says.
Throughout Crushing, that sense of confidence manifests in one of the most essential elements of the album: the captivating strength of Jacklin’s lyrics. Not only proof of her ingenuity and artistic generosity, Jacklin’s uncompromising specificity and infinitely unpredictable turns of phrase ultimately spring from a certain self-possession in the songwriting process.
“As I was making this album there was sort of a slow loosening of pressure on myself,” Jacklin says. “There’ve been some big life changes for me over the last few years, and I just found it too tiring to try to cover things up with a lot of metaphors and word trickery. I just wanted to lay it all out there and trust that, especially at such a tense moment in time, other people might want to hear a little vulnerability.”
Crushing
01. Body
01. Body
the police met the plane
they let you finish your meal
I know you’d like to believe it baby
but you’re more kid than criminal
just a boy who could not
get through a domestic flight
without lighting up in the restroom
got caught, cloud of smoke, thumb still on the light
you looked so proud
couldn’t wait to call a friend
we had to fly back home
never got the money back for that weekend
right there on the Sydney tarmac I
threw my luggage down
I said I’m gonna leave you
I’m not a good woman when you’re around
that’s when the sound came in
I could finally see
I felt the changing of the seasons
all of my senses rushing back to me
go your own way
watch me turn my own head
eyes on the driver, hands in my lap
heading to the city, to get my body back
I remembered early days
when you took my camera
turned to me, 23, naked on your bed looking straight at ya
do you still have that photograph
would you use it to hurt me?
well I guess it’s just my life
and it’s just my body
I guess it’s just my life
and it’s just my body x4
02. Head, Alone
02. Head, Alone
give me a full length mirror
so I can see the whole picture
my head, alone, gives nothing away
guess I could stand on a chair
put it back by the table before you get there
my head, alone doesn’t know how to say
I don’t want to be touched all the time
I raised my body up to be mine
he said give me another drink
you know it’s easy to talk when you don’t have to think
my head, alone, won’t do it that way
come on give me the room tonight
you know I’ve told you before that you hold me too tight
and my head, alone just wants to say
I don’t want to be touched all the time
I raised my body up to be mine
yeah I don’t want to be touched all the time
I raised my body up to be mine
I have your back
more than I have mine
I want you to feel good
all of the time
so I’ll say it till he understands
you can love somebody without using your hands
yeah I’ll say it till he understands
you can love somebody without using your hands
03. Pressure to Party
03. Pressure to Party
pressure to party, gonna stay in
nothing good can come from me drinking
I would run shoes off, straight back to you
I know where you live
I used to live there too
pressure to feel fine after the fact
out on the dance floor with my body back
meeting a stranger, touching his face
I don’t want anyone to ever take your place
pressure to go strike out on your own
pressure to learn from being alone
pressure to not leave it for too long
before you find another heart where you belong
pressure to come up with conversation
that makes the family fine with my isolation
I know I’ve locked myself in my room
but I’ll open up the door and try to love again soon
Try to love again soon
Try to love again soon
Try to love again soon
pressure to act, the right way around him
we’re both in a crowd, with people surrounding us
what do I do? don’t know how it works
pressure to not, let the inside of my mind
spill onto the floor for our friends to find it
oh what do I do? cause god how it hurts
pressure to come up with reasons why
sometimes it might look to you like I’m not even trying
I know I’ve locked myself in my room
but I’ll open up the door and try to love again soon
try to love again soon
try to love again soon
try to love again soon
04. Don’t Know How To Keep Loving You
04. Don’t Know How To Keep Loving You
I wanna want you, I want to stay here like this
I want to feel it all, every time that we kiss
I want your mother to stay friends with mine
I want this feeling to pass in time
but you know my body now, and I know yours
we’ve put so many things, between these walls
and every gift you buy me, I know what’s inside
what do I do now, there’s nothing left to find?
don’t know how to keep loving you
now that I know you so well x 4
what if I cleaned up, what if I worked on my skin
I could scrub until I am red; hot, weak and thin
too tired to run away, what do I do now
there’s nothing left to say?
don’t know how to keep loving you
now that I know you so well x 4
Into the darkness, or is it the light?
should I be waking up or finding a place to sleep tonight?
who will I be, now that you’re no longer next to me?
don’t know how to keep loving you
now that I know you so well x 7
I just want to keep loving you
05. When The Family Flies In
05. When The Family Flies In
I was sitting, in my corolla
talking to you while my friends drank inside
there was a silence, weak telephone reception
doesn’t compliment a dark state of mind
you know it’s bad when the family flies in
working bees back to the hive
you know it’s bad when the family flies in
just to stand by your side
oh the last thing, that I sent to you
was an irrelevant music video
I’ll always wonder, if you ever watched it
thought you had longer to go
you know it’s bad when the family flies in
working bees back to the hive
you know it’s bad when the family flies in
just to stand by your side
well goodbye, well goodbye
06. Convention
06. Convention
do we really wanna give him the microphone?
you know that he’ll keep talking long after everyone’s gone home
we’ll have to pay, to keep the lights on
and that bill will arrive just when all our savings have gone
can I say something, can I give advice?
just hit the main switch so we can sleep well tonight
my social standing got me six rows from the front
and my dinner companion was a little drunk
says he buys the paper but he reads between the lines
“I can show you how I do it, why don’t you come back to mine?”
oh please say something I’m dying for your advice
I can tell you won’t sleep well, if you don’t teach me how to do it right
call me a ride, I can’t walk home
can’t stand the pain from these shoes I’ve now outgrown
07. Good Guy
07. Good Guy
tell me I’m the love of your life, just for a night
even if you don’t feel it
tell me I’m the love of your life, just for a night
even if you don’t mean it
I don’t care for the truth when I’m lonely, I don’t care if you lie
I don’t care if in the morning you get up not say goodbye
I don’t care for the truth when I’m lonely, I don’t care if you lie
come on breathe in breathe out
you’re still a good guy
tell me I’m the love of your life, just for a night
even if you don’t feel it
tell me I’m everything that you could find
and you don’t wanna waste it
I don’t care for the truth when I’m lonely, I don’t care if you lie
I don’t care if in the morning you get up not say goodbye
I don’t care for the truth when I’m lonely, I don’t care if you lie
come on breathe in breathe out
you’re still a good guy
tell me I’m the love of your life, just for a night
even if you don’t feel it
08. You Were Right
08. You Were Right
started listening to your favourite band
the night I stopped listening to you
you were always trying to force my hand
but now I’m listening because I want to
you were right, I liked it
you were wrong, I was a good friend
started eating at your favourite place
the night I stopped eating with you
you were always trying to force my taste
but now I’m eating there cause I want to
you were right, I liked it
you were wrong, I was a good friend to you
twin hotel room, no bed to make
what can I do to change myself for your sake?
I don’t want you here, you make me
feel so small I’m gonna disappear
started feeling like myself again
the day I stopped saying your name
we can try and start it up again
but it’s never gonna feel the same
you were right, I liked it
you were wrong, I was a good friend to you
09. Turn Me Down
09. Turn Me Down
learner driver, going 80k’s
trying to get to Melbourne, it’s probably gonna take two days
lover beside you, gripping the door
oh you know why he is nervous, you have crashed before
it’s a lot to ask of you, to believe in me
when I can’t even promise I’d do things differently
next time
pulled off the highway, found a place to sit
he took my hand said I see a bright future
I’m just not sure that you’re in it
it’s a lot to ask of me, to believe in you
when I don’t know if you’ll ever love me the way I want you to
so please just, turn me down
oh please just, turn me down
why won’t you, turn me down
oh please just, turn me down
why won’t you, turn me down
oh please just, turn me down
why won’t you, turn me down
why won’t you, turn me down?
Don’t look at me, look at the centre line
maybe I’ll see you in a supermarket sometime
10. Comfort
10. Comfort
you’ll be okay, you’ll be alright
you’ll get well soon, sleep through the night
you’ll go outside, enjoy the sun
soon you’ll feel fine, to see everyone
he’s gonna thrive, he’ll be just fine
hurt for a while, cured with time
don’t know how he’s doing, but that’s what you get
you can’t be the one to hold him
when you were the one who left
he’s got good friends, they’ll pull him in
take him out dancing, help to begin again
don’t know how he’s doing, but that’s what you get
you can’t be the one to hold him
when you were the one who left
Are you thinking of me too?
I was so happy all those years with you
I’ll be okay, I’ll be alright
I’ll get well soon, sleep through the night
don’t know how you’re doing, but that’s what I get
I can’t be the one to hold you
when I was the one who left
Don’t Let The Kids Win
01. Pool Party
01. Pool Party
I was shorter than my dad’s dining table
You were taller than my bedroom door frame
Hit me hard when I found height don’t make a man no
You grew smaller to me that Saturday when,
You came crashing crawling down through the back brush
Eyes were bloodshot and your leaden voice thin
Said, “I won’t blame you now, but I caught your cold somehow”
Then you jumped right in
Oh I want to give you all of my love
But I watched you sink as they swam above
You are the land and I am the dove
My heart is heavy when you’re high
So for me why won’t you try
Said you’re sorry you were drinking through the day then
Only stopped to let your lungs take the hit
Said “I won’t blame you now, but you lost my love somehow”
Then you jumped right in
Oh I want to give you all of my love
But I watched you sink as they swam above
You are the land and I am the dove
My heart is heavy when you’re high
So for me why won’t you try
02. Leadlight
02. Leadlight
I was once a sunday kneeler
When I saw the leadlight
Fall from the pane
I didn’t know that the grass
Was not only greener
Upkeep is cheaper
When you embrace the rain
So I jumped down and lay with my leadlight
And under your spotlight, I lay with the shards
And I didn’t know that ground
Was not only harder
Oh but colder when you are not around
I love you my darling I do
But I can’t let possession make a fool of you
I love you my darling I do
But I can’t promise I’ll be here to see this whole love through
So I ran with dreams to reach the skyline
And straight up that incline I ran towards the blue
And I didn’t know that the sky
Is not only wider
Oh but clearer when I’m standing next to you
I love you my darling I do
But I can’t let possession make a fool of you
I love you my darling I do
But I can’t promise I’ll be here to see this whole love through
Oh I believe in trust you see
But don’t you go and put your trust in me
I cost more than you earn
So tell me boy why didn’t you ever learn
I love you my darling I do
But I can’t let possession make a fool of you
I love you my darling I do
But I can’t promise I’ll be here to see this whole love through
03. Coming of Age
03. Coming of Age
I gotta find myself a girl
Who makes me wanna take on the world
I gotta find myself a girl
Who makes my straight toes curl
See I had a life in my head
I’d be pushing up that hill
Until those toes bled
Now I gotta learn this new stage
Didn’t see it coming, my coming of age
Didn’t see it coming, my coming of age
Didnt see it coming I, must have shucked that rage
Didnt see it coming my, coming of age
Yeah now I’m alright, I’m doing fine
But I’ll be pushing up that hill
Until I get what’s mine
Yeah now I’m gonna learn this new stage
Didn’t see it coming, my coming of age
Didn’t see it coming, my coming of age
Didn’t see it coming I, must have shucked that rage
Didn’t see it coming my, coming of age
04. Elizabeth
04. Elizabeth
So shaky so fine
Standing up there baby oh you look so divine
So harsh that bright stage light
Showing the first four rows that you don’t wanna play tonight
But you know I want you to
You know I need you to
And I’ll be there for you darling
Even if it all falls through
So steady so calm
Standing up there darling with the front row in the heal of your palm
So good that bright stage light
Showing the back four rows that you got it made here tonight
But you know I want you to
You know I need you to
And I’ll be there for you darling when it all starts to come true
You stepped down off our home ground said good friend I’m done
So I left the game as they yelled my name said, girl you’re my number one
So shaky so fine
Standing up there baby oh you look so divine
05. Motherland
05. Motherland
These new lines on my face
Spell out girl pick up your pace
If you want to stay true
To what your younger self would do
And this kink in my walk
Makes me focus when I talk
If I can’t trust my feet
Then it’s my tongue I choose to keep
And I walk slow so I can read
Let my head fall my hips lead
Why’d you write the words so small
Did you fool me, are they words at all?
Or are you pulling down the veil
Keeping grounded as you set my sail?
By the time I pull it off
All my innocence is lost
But oh I’m good, I think I’m good
Will I be great, will I be great?
Is it money I wanna make or is it sweet love
For his sake?
And this new parts I now need
To help me focus, help me feed
They are beyond my modest earnings
Oh the girls they keep turning up the heat as if it’s cold
But I’m hot, too hot to hold
I’ll burn a hole right through the hull
When will I
Ever see the land
Will I ever see the land?
Oh water can’t revive me
I need dirt in my hand
Will I ever see the land
Will I ever see the land?
Oh the ground will give me something
I know that it can
See I have charm and I have sight
And I always try and do whats right
But I have faults you know it’s true
Especially when it comes to treating you well
I will work when all my thoughts are mine again
See I was sure at the start, turns out I tried to hard
But oh I’m good, I think I’m good
Will I be great, will I be great
Is it money I wanna make or is it sweet love.
For his sake?
CHORUS
06. Small Talk
06. Small Talk
Zach Braff you look just like my dad
Back when I thought I had the best one
Oh what a life it could have been
Me in the cradle you on the screen
But you’re too young to be
A Father to me
You’re too young to be
A Father to me
Catherine Denevue
You look just like my mother used to
When she loved me, oh when she loved me
Oh what a life just you and I
Learning to walk whilst you read your lines
But you’re too old to be
A Mother to me
You’re too old to be
A mother to me
Surely you’re not saying
The TV lied
I truly believe
That they would love me back in real life
Hey kid at the bar you
Know who you are I’ve been
Staring you down as I play this out of tune guitar
Oh just think what we could be
I swear I’ll dress cooler if you just go home with me
But you’re too young to be
A lover to me
I’m getting older and I forget sometime you see
Surely you’re not saying
The TV lied
I truly believe that I will have it all in my life
So don’t you waste my time
Don’t you waste my time
On small talk and cheap wine
07. LA Dream
07. LA Dream
Why’d you go to the grocery store
On the day you planned to leave
Left me here with all this food
My body does not need
And now I’m lying listless like a dog after a feed
Thinking about the life that you’ll now lead
Why’d you go and push in
When you saw my face in the line
Said if I just focus I could get laid anytime
But now I’m lying broken like a dog after a fight
Guess I was not made for your life
Guess I was not made for your life
There on central station
Uou forced my lips to scream
Loving you ain’t easy babe
It’s just an LA dream
And I’ll be lying happy knowing
We still spent the time
Guess you were not meant to be mine
Guess you were not meant to be mine
08. Sweet Step
08. Sweet Step
I was dancing for a while
See I was trying to perfect a style
Out on that dance floor oh boy did I sweat
Shaking to get noticed has not worked for me yet
But I’ll keep trying
I was swinging my blonde hair round
See I was trying to get my feet off the ground
And I rose steady to the roof of my room
I may not be a great dancer but I might be a good one soon
But I’ll keep trying
Dancing for yourself aint bad when you’re dying to find
That sweet step that will help to free your mind
09. Same Airport, Different Man
09. Same Airport, Different Man
Same airport, different man
I’m starting to think that I don’t know quite who I am
Same airport, different man
He’s circling the carpark waiting for me to land
Same airport, different dress
This one is blue and it is longer than the rest
Same airport different dress,
Last one was short and red and too tight for my growing chest
Same airport, different life
At 16 lost my first love to a one way flight
Same airport, different life
Sat down by the carousel looking old enough to make a wife now
Same airport, different ride home
Last time I went to my mothers, this time to my own
Same airport, different ride home
Riding shot gun to my baby, next time I’ll get the train alone
Same airport, different man
He looks happy, he looks happy
Same airport, different man
10. Hay Plain
10. Hay Plain
Driving home the road makes me feel smaller
My fear forces my hand into the shoulder
And I feel you darling on my own
Every mile brings you a little closer
I’m driving into the Hay Plain
I won’t survive the night if you don’t stay in your lane
I’m heading away from that wide sunset
Wondering if my new man
Misses me yet
Baby you don’t have to drive me round no more
I went and got myself a car so I can pay you back for
All the times you took me back home
Every mile brings you a little closer
I’m driving into the Hay Plain
I won’t survive the night if you don’t stay in your lane
I’m heading away from that wide sunset
Wondering if my new man
Is in love with me yet
Besides that truck driver on the Western Distributer
Who caught me changing, sorry babe he saw everything
I’ve been keeping my skin for when you fly in
And you want me, physically
Besides that night in Adelaide in the back of a cab
When a good man said he’d give me what I’ve never had
I’ve been keeping my eye for when you come online
And you need me, emotionally
I’m driving into the Hay Plain
I won’t survive the night if you don’t stay in your lane
I’m heading away from that wide sunset
Wondering if my new man
Misses me yet
11. Don’t Let The Kids Win
11. Don’t Let The Kids Win
Don’t let the kids win
Just let them lose
They’re not gonna learn anything
If that’s the way you choose to play
Don’t let the kids win
Just let them fall
You don’t want them growing up thinking
Three year olds are good at playing basketball
Don’t let your grandmother die
While you’re away
A cheap trip to Thailand’s not gonna make up
For never getting to say goodbye
And don’t let your brother
Stop thinking you’re cool
I know he’s got a girlfriend now
And he’s taller
But that don’t mean
He’s stopped looking up to you
I’ve got a feeling,
That this won’t ever change
We’re gonna keep on getting older
It’s gonna keep on feeling strange
Don’t let your friends turn cold
While you burn to green
When they walk off the stage embrace them
And say that’s the best shit I’ve ever seen
And don’t let your sister
Walk down the isle
Without pulling her close saying I love you and it’s okay
If I don’t see you for a while
I’ve got a feeling,
That this won’t ever change
We’re gonna keep on getting older
It’s gonna keep on feeling strange
Don’t let the time go by
Without sitting your mother down
And asking what, life was like for her before you came
To be around and tell her it’s okay
If she puts herself first
Us kids will be alright if we’re not the centre of her universe
I’ve got a feeling
That this won’t ever change
We’re gonna keep on getting older
It’s gonna keep on feeling strange and
After a late one, I don’t know anything
Except the more I keep on talking
The less breath I got left to sing
Eastwick / Cold Caller
01. Eastwick
01. Eastwick
It might make for good TV
The grieving process for all to see
But I don’t want my father ashes
Scattered over strangers couches
And it might make for a fun night in if I
Wore a dress and slept with him
But I really hate showing my legs
Even when the Sydney summer begs me
Come on now your roots are showing
Unlike hands your hair keeps growing
Come on love you could keep on dyeing
I think the truth is more age defying
And in the day when it turned dark
We were just two shelves apart when we realised
It’s not right,
You are not in a garden you are, in a store
A single stemmed rose, reaching out for more
Did it come as a great shock
When your third love said hey you’re not
Gonna get his heart to beat by
Laying offerings at his feet
And in the day when it turned dark
We were two cages apart when we realised
It’s not right,
You are not in the wild you are, in a pen
A forgotten sow wondering when, you can run
02. Cold Caller
02. Cold Caller
Will I be a mother or will I always be a child?
Will someone come and say hey girl it’s your time?
What if I’m dancing and I don’t hear the door knock?
And some cold caller decides I’m not, ready to change
What if my body is but my mind remains the same?
Will I be a mother or will I always be a child?
Will someone come and say your time has arrived?
What if I’m sleeping and I don’t wake with the clock?
And I sleep right through it and some kind of god decides I’m not
Ready to change,
What if my mind is but my body won’t take to the stage?
I heard her screaming last night in my dreams
I tried to reach out and hold her
Can someone please tell me what that screaming means
And not say wait till you get older
Are you alright?
I have to see
Oh my sweet sister
you’ve always been braver than me
What if my love is but I’m not ready to be?
I’m willing to change, oh it’s not just me he’s also afraid.
