The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

whatever

singing david bowie numbers at the sydney opera house

with the sydney symphony orchestra

thats quite a gig i guess

i wasn’t too bad but i was not perfect either

and singing those songs right carries a whole lot more responsibility

than singing my own songs right..?

of course you know it does

because if i fuck up my own songs they are mine to fuck up

i can forget words i can play wrong notes i can get it all wrong

but the people don’t mind because its mine

so with bowies songs i didn’t get all the aspects right and ok

thats enough self flagellation

except there is room for improvement

the other singers were great

(boy tim rogers is a character on and offstage)

bowie was the best there ever was in my opinion

he was a prime mover moving beyond his own influences

to be the main man

a once in a century type

he was number one in every department

and his songs are masterpieces mostly

and for a good decade everything he touched was gold

and always flashes of brilliance too in the sometimes patchy later records

and his patchy is better than most other singers best

no one could ever underestimate how important he was to me

the symphony show will be coming eventually to a city near you

and even possibly going overseas to some strange places

it was the most exciting nerve-wracking fulfilling gig of my career

my good friends were there esp dave r, george e, chris b, mark a

natalie aurora eve and scarlet came and watched and enjoyed

after a drive home in a cab with eve and aurora and they get out

the cab driver, an old european gent says

you have fine and beautiful daughters. they are a credit to you!

and that just about ends the last of the sydney gigs

but there will be more to come

i will miss my compadres esp adalita whom i love like a sister

everyone was super nice and super pro

a bloody good gig! i am a happy customer

at least for awhile

more gigs and work on new solo album coming up!

adieu then

sk coogee bay sunday the 22 nd may 2016

when evenings skin becomes brittle and breaks open

revealing a terrible night with all its hands

and the trees full of birds and a discordant song

across the fields a murmur begins

oh savage beautiful women here i stand

with a spearful of fish and my dagger of wands

i am the cripple dance man with my luggage missing in utopia

hey i am waltzing through your open gates

where a fountains spray has cooled my burning ardour

where my tumescent ambition has ripened into sweet actions

and the eyes may graze for a moment upon yonder hills

in the candle light all the lamps and buttercup runneth over

the liquid milk of midsummer midnight now long spilt

when i was once your barrow boy and rode home to my school

when i was your fletcher and arrows filled our day

when i was your little dog boy and you taught me how to jump

then your castles were only in the sand now wonderful queen

and you overlooked a battlement of haze and blue blurred horizon

no ordinary child you held future between fingers

i have returned then from my exile

in burnished silks i rode henceforth through the creaking leagues

the hymns immolated by gods true presence

of course i knelt…who wouldn’t?

i am purified on the slag heap of decades

i am exonerated by the same crocodile judges

who sent me down

i have come back now in my tosca gretel slim tone

i have come back upon coins and postage stamps

i have come back as a whisper down a long cold line

this is all nonsense why who reads such stuff as this…?

bless my martinet blanket wear you lay disrobed during your shoot

blessed the imprint of musk you made upon my faintest door

in a window you now seem to be captured upon the pane

i cherish the ash where my room burnt away letting in the sea

in a green rush we were laughing as a ship we are swallowed

in the long life of a sparrow the worm is still to appear

by that i mean europe is elsewhere now take these claws away

it seems i have been sitting on the swings forever and ever

now I’m so dizzy as the world whirls round

i clutch at the maple and myrtle and elm

i am the photo of antiquity taken by aristophanes

splinters of the one true cross i bear rivers to cross

among the tribes and cults i bring disco music trapped in a skull

unreleased from my sins i travel light the globe in my mystery suit

i spit out poetry to hounds and mynah birds

but i digress in this garden of your loveliness

with your tawny feeling thorn of softest morning

i am the dawn of an empire briefly flourished in a mirror

archived in the memory of a flash

translated into the words of the wind

the flowers that uncurl to the darknesses fingers

a sickness that preys on a pale child who walks away

a miserable dark spirit who keeps coming back again in new shapes

a malevolent shadow that lingers on even in the brightest sun

with winter shudders i approach thee now

stupid as i am i have found my way to these dreaming gardens

oh so heavy my burden of slurs

dented in an accident they beat my panels

in flannels and wool the dissolving pull of my lamb

the scramble for light that begins in a tunnel

by your lily pad ponds no doubt out grown and over fond

see me as the salmon rising for the wriggling nymph on the surface of your brook

the cold mouth river where i swam against the dam wall in the fall of man

think of me as the immediate distant taste when we kissed in my dream

the creamy edge of the land that crumbles into sand

you held me in your hand

and

plastic camera

more stuff is on its way hip hoorah hooray

the speed of the stars is finished

its the bees knees and the last word in celtic rock

frank kearns and i united in our quest for truth and beauty

have created , yes, this masterpiece

frank and his strat and his eventide harmoniser negotiate delicate misty places

a music of minutiae and cosmos

the words gleaned from dream

the record is a door to another world

what a wonderful job everybody did with it

a magical record and something unusual

then

we have bowie at the sydney opera house with the sydney symphony ork

wow cmon cats thats gotta be cool right

your humble hero one of 6 singers some of the best songs ever written

then back to work on solo album in june

then back to usa with furs

and more Bowie shows in other australian cities

as well as the golden greats show you may see me doing with other various people

its all happening for sure

I’m the busiest guy in the biz baby and i never stop working

being a renaissance man means you gotta keep feeding the engine

yeah yeah sure kilbey sure whatever you say

enjoy it while you still can

be appreciative of all you have

don’t look back

dare to impose your will on the emptiness and silence

such a struggle to fight with everyone who wants to change your trip

so many bumps so many humps

so many jumps into the unknown

its exhilarating its tiring its thrilling its mundanity itself

just seen the rough cut of my doco

yeah!

more of kilbey jumpin’ around in slo mo

while the church cooks up a jam

and less of the old guys pontificating  (i prescribe for it)

so anyway some of it is pretty promising so far…

so thats me right there i guess for ya

and in spades

a travelling tragedian

a bohemian buffoon

a stupid genius

an ordinary joe