Almanac Music: The close shave

Sung fast and loose, like Dale Steyn, or Tombstone Blues:

 

This is a song

About a throng

Of hairy men

Who, just when

Their town was threatened

Decided to get in

And the day save

But it was a close shave

You get the picture?

We were saved by a whisker

Twenty-sixteen, paradise

Craft beer, whiskey on ice

Values up, noise down

Everyone knew everyone in Newtown

Then the tempest

Did what it does best

It started to rain

And it rained again

Pissing down, pouring

(No old men left, so no snoring)

Filling the pools and filling the pails

Washing the mural, watering the kale

First one day then eleven

Day after day in our inner heaven

And pools that were puddles started to grow

And a man in the know said “Hello!

I thought the rain would enchant us

But now Newtown could become Atlantis”

So they found the girl from Series 1 Survivor

Who now made a living as a salvage diver

And sent her down to take a look

And she provided them a picture book

That lay out the problem for all to see

And the council called a meeting of the community

The man in the know talked really slow

His PechaKucha began to glow

“It’s just as I feared”

Said a man with a beard

“Real estate flyers

Discarded by buyers

Are clogging the drains

And trapping the rain

Newtown will flood

Or be swallowed by mud”

Someone said “I always wanted a waterfront”

Another “Be quiet, you silly person”

And a fight broke out in front of the station

Led by opponents of amalgamation

Then a voice from the back cut through the fray

“Inner Westies, let’s seize the day

I’ve got a project, I’ve got a plan

All we need is to build a dam

It will create a wall, stop the flow

And then the immerse will start to go”

Then the man with the beard pointed out

That they weren’t beavers or rainbow trout

They didn’t build dams, they made craft beer

There were no dam-builders here

But the man with the plan said “Look within

The key to it all is on your chin”

And the light went on and the barbers all smiled

And the ukelele chorus went wild

And they lined them up along the street

Every hipster you ever did meet

One guy said “I fear for my vanity”

But too great was the call of humanity

And the clippers clipped and the razors razed

And the whiskers flew and the town was saved

The hair collected along 800 metres

From Erskineville to St Peters

And it acted like a giant blotter

Ginger and hairy, liked baked ricotta

Soaked up the water, stopped the flow

And the rest evaporated as the rain did slow

The town cheered and the hipsters beered

And the Sydney Morning Herald supplement appeared

They erected a statue in Young Henry’s

To compensate for bad memories

Newtown, you were saved by the hipsters

Hung to life, by a whisker

And if you think this is a barefaced lie

Be quiet, you silly person.

 

 

About Peter Warrington

Richmond fan; Kim Hughes tragic; geographer; kids' book author; Evertonian; Manikato; Harold Park trots 1980; father of two; cat lover, dancer with dogs; wannabe PJ HArvey backing vocalist; delusional...

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