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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