1. WHEN THE GENERALS TALK

Up there on the platform
He is speaking to the people
The people are responding
With clapping and a cheering
But the meaning of the message
Not revealed to those assembled
They're taken for a ride
Taken in his stride

When the generals talk
You better listen to him
When the generals talk
You better do what he say

There's a rumour in the ranking
Someone talking insurrection
So the general has a purge
'Cos he wants to win elections
With the certain satisfaction
That the people are appeased
Long live the revolution
The general's very pleased

Sitting on the fence both ears to the ground
The fat cat's still push the thin cats around

*****

2. BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

You say times are tough
We've got the best of both worlds here
Things are rough
We've got the best of both worlds here
Times are tough
We've got the best of both worlds here

The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here
The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here

The old world is not as safe with the new world closing in
The great south land can be as great as the one it could have been
The one it could have been

The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here
The small world is not as strong and the testing ground is near
The old world is not as safe as the one we could have seen
The great south land can be as great as the one it could have been
The one it could have been

We've got the best of both worlds

*****

3. SLEEP

So you got the blues
The evening wore out your shoes
To a shuffling beat
It's a colorful crowd
Spray can information
Cover the lonely station
Checkpoint for the state of the nation

On the moissionbeat beat
The radio drug
Wayward destionations
Secondhand sensations

In the back of the cell
The plug and the cord
Shoulder dislocation
Bruised in isolation

In the eye of the storm
Writing on the walls
Cross my heart confusion
Looking for a new solution

It's the heat of the land
Swallowing sweat
Say those dreams can shake me
Dawn come down and save me
Take this heart
Break this heart
Wrap it up and let me sleep

*****

4. MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

Everybodys say god is a good man
Ah, clock on the world
Driving a dump truck up to the sun
A sigh in the human heart
I look at the clock on the wall
It says three minutes to midnight
Faith is blind when we're so near

Phar Lap floating in a jar
Seas full of submarines, A.W.A.C's like flies
Truth gets harder to define
Talking in tongues

But the dancer's hand grips the rail
And fingers will blister on the 88's
Hope drains out the side of the page

But ears can't hear
What eyes don't see
And you can't see me

Everybody say god is a good man
Everybody say 1,2,3
Set up those gunsights in H.G. Wells backyard
I.C.B.M's, S.S. 20's they lie so dormant they got
So many

Remember your childhood
Remember the journey
Hope is what you say and do

*****

5. JIMMY SHARMAN'S BOXER

From the red dust north of Dalmore Downs
Sharman's tents roll into town
Twelve will face the auctioneer
Sharman's boxers stand their ground

Their days are darker than your nights
But they won't be the first to fall
Children broken from their dreams
But they won't be the first to fall

Fighting in the spotlight
Eyes turn blacker than their skin
For Jimmy Sharman's boxers
It's no better if you win
Standing in the darkness
Lined up waiting for the bell
The days are wasted drinking
At the first and last hotel

Why are we fighting for this?
Why are you paying for this?
You pay to see me fall like shrapnel to the floor
What is the reason for this?
There is a reason for this?
What is the reason they keeping coming back for more?

The blows now bring him to his knees
But still the crowd calls out for more
The drums are burning in his ears
The man keeps counting out the score

*****

6. BAKERMAN

Instrumental

*****

7. WHO CAN STAND IN THE WAY

Well oh well I feel I'm in decay
John Laws is on the air again
It's heavy traffic, jacardandas, eye in sky and foot on ground
I see a million sand speck'd ants in mortal combat hand to hand
And I feel that I, yes I feel that I
Seem to live this life long distance gaze at the things surround me
People rolling in and out those circles and tides confound me
And there's just one thing, yes ther's just one thing

Who can stand in the way when there's a dollar to be made

I was hanging round off Dobroyd Point, when the first fleet chain sailed in
Looked into the clearest blue, the scurvy smell, the convicts cry
And we just carried on, yes we just carried on
Now choppers strafe the supermaket sky and people wonder why
chopping down tons of trees got seas of print not a soul can read say
Why do I drown you build brick boxes one by one now they block my sun
But it's metal on metal it's the dance of T.V.
If Christ were here he'd camera check he'd cry so loud the planes would stop
He'd cry so loud the earth would shake and men would fall in tinsel town
There's just one thing, yes there's just one thing

Who can stand in they way when there's a dollar to be made
Precious moments precious few
It's the joy of forgetting such a joy to forget
But we killed our first born and we slashed and we burned
And we sold off the paddocks and we raped and we gouged
On the wings of a six-pack will we ever learn

*****

8. KOSCIUSKO

Older than Kosciusko
Darwin down to Alice Springs
Dealers in the clearinghouse
The settlements explode

High up in the homelands
Miners drive across the land
Encounter no resistance
When the people block the road

Old than Kosciusko
Dry white seasons years ago
Darkness over Charleville
The fires begin to glow

No end to the hostility
Now they wanna be somehwere else
No stranger to brutality
Now they'd like to be someone else

Older than Kosciusko
Driven back to Alice Springs
Endless storms and struggle
Now the figes begin to rage

High up in the homelands
Celebration 'cross the land
Builds up like a cyclone
Now the fires begin to rage

Call off the ultimatum
No don't turn away
Call off the ultimatum until yesterday
Call off the ultimatum, no don't turn away
Bind up the brokenhearted
No don't turn away

Call off the ultimatum until yesterday

*****

9. HELPS ME HELPS YOU

Look at all the toys I got
Look at all the things I need
Look at all the toys I got
Look at all the mouths I feed

Have I got a wonderful deal for you
What belongs to me belongs to you
I understand what you're going through
I know the point to push you to

My policy helps me helps you
Generosity helps me helps you
Conspiracy helps me helps you
Put your trust in me I'll help you too

Look at all the things I've done
Look at all the rights I wrong
The means will justify the end
For you to save and me to spend

'Cos I've got a great idea you see
What belongs to me belongs to me
I know just what you wanna do
I know how I can get there too

Hypocrisy helps me helps you
Democracy helps me helps you
Ideology helps me helps you
Put your trust in me
I'll help your through

*****

10. HARRISBOURG

The empire burns
The umpire's not laughing
The president's resented,
The ambassadors's a night club
You cannot get it out

It's stuff you cannot taste or see
It's stuff you cannot smell
It's stuff that's twenty times as hot
As the hottest stuff in hell

Harrisburg oh Harrisburg
The plant is melting down
The people out in Harrisburg
Are getting out of town
And when this stuff gets in
You cannot get it out

The company said it would not blow
The government said it might
Harrisburg oh Harrisburg
I wonder who is right

Who can leave it behind, the curtains are drawn
There's something I must say to you
You cannot get it out

*****

11. BELLS AND HORNS IN THE BACK OF BEYOND

The Southern Aurora was late again
As I waited at central to take you home
Winking spinning sparkling lights on our flat earth
You talk about the old groundling ways
Where the suburbs summer pulse and play in wrinkled sand and
never never never neverland
I get home I see them drive down
I look out and see those lines and lines and lines of swell and
smiles
Coolangatta, what's the matter?
Paradise, it's a surfer's world and flashing lights and real
estate
With one last wave
Ahhh, get up and run
'Cause there's a beach lies quiet near the open sea
And a carpark lay streched where the bindis used to be
When will I be yours
When will I be mine

*****

12. SHIPYARDS OF NEW ZEALAND

Thought one day I'd make my fortune
Like the ancient cavalcades
From the shipyards of New Zealand
Chasing history I left home

Moving west into the sunset
Became the sunset of our lives
I was factory made and settled
Safe from storm and broken earth

There's so much to do every day
Dreams keep on disappearing
We cling to the walls of our heart
Keep us from coming undone

Now danger lurks behind the spreader
And Chalrton Heston casts the first stone
User interference birthmarks
Clever, not very wise

Let the lamplights keep on shining now
While those searchlights in skies they are turning
We climb to the top of the heap, I wish I could fly

I can't get lost
I can't get confused
Something's misplaced
Maybe for good