The Time Being | Steve Kilbey

fool of fools hill

meandering narcissistic introspection

the story so far

I am in London guv’nor where it all fucking started

when my dad met my mum

both working class cannon fodder for the empire as it has been forever

go back on both sides

yep my dad as a royal marine in ww2

both grandads in ww1 one half blinded the other gassed

further back you got the Boer war and the crimean war and all the other fucking wars

some bastard dreamt up who was never gonna fight in them himself

the English…I mean what do you make of em?

well…they (we) gave you the Beatles and the stones and bowie n bolan

so I guess I can forgive em for all the other nasty stuff that happened

(like um America n India n Australia etc)

and so here I am just one more tiny troubadour

your favourite foppish minstrel still wandering the globe

man I sing I play I travel I write I stay in hotels

I tread the boards me n my trusty bass

I am in fucking love with that thing

that thing is my flesh and we do stuff together without thinking

when I play it I am on the verge of some cosmic orgasm that I ride and I surf

yes I feel just like Jesus son

my brilliant words come rushing out my pommy throat

I have written these songs for you

you who truly love me and understand me

you who know the weight on my back and my tragedies and triumphs

these songs I dragged screaming and teaming from my English head

yeah my dad played the piano

yeah my mum would have liked poetry if she coulda got her hands on any

after she was bombed her whole childhood and then sent to work

after looking after a load of snotty nosed little brothers

my mum n dad had no pretension to arty stuff

my mum had to cook n clean n work

and my dad had to work 6 days a week to put bread on the table

outta that arises me

a freak an anomaly a rebel an idiot a cheeky naughty little boy

thanks dad I’ll have the music from you

thanks mum for reading me Robert Louis Stevenson n Lewis Carroll

thanks beatles for inventing rock music

thanks bolan n bowie for showing me how it could be done

and then I am fucking off n running

just like my dad I taught myself everything I fucking know about music

fuck your stupid rocknroll universities they will produce no Bob Dylans anytime soon

I stood back and I grokked it baby

I grokked it for myself

and only a very few could see my manifest destiny

that I was gonna write a thousand beautiful songs

and the rest of the world can go to hell

let em eat mcdonalds n fried chicken

let em listen to axle fucking rose and whoever the fuck is number one now

im Kilbey and I write the stuff. you gonna listen to all your life

right from for a moment we’re strangers on

you will listen and keep loving this stuff for the rest of your life

people will ask : who’s that yer listening to..?

they won’t understand

they don’t understand vegetarianism

they don’t understand magic

they don’t understand peace n love n understanding

why would they understand me?

what the fuck am I singing about if not your life?

yeah you never met me or you shook my sweaty hand once somewhere

still I sing your life to you

I sing if you but have the ears to hear it

I surround myself with my merry men

the guys in this band man they are the best

Jeffrey fucking Cain our latest member

can you dig how brilliant he is as a songwriter and player?

Ian haug is rocknroll with an Aussie accent

he surfs he rocks he has given this band new vital life

Peter koppes now an undisputed absolute master of music

on every level he is across this shit

he doesn’t merely play a guitar he coaxes beauty forth

Tim on drums solid inventive exciting precise musical innovative

we are ready London and anywhere else

we are inexorably good

we slay every audience we play to

we don’t care if we do or we dont

we are cocky confident and we deliver

and then theres me

an enigma to myself

some lovely god has blessed me with a new beginning

onstage I am charged with an impossible energy

an energy that hurls my voice from my mouth

an energy that fucks me like a female muse

and whispers obscenities to me as i pound that magic bass

its sex its mind its spirit its god its devil its from one thousand lifetimes

I can’t wait to get loose on wherever the fuck we are going

I don’t care

I get on the plane or the train or the bus

I check into the hotels and I check back out

let me at the fucking audiences..!

I don’t wanna see yer stupid palaces or museums or towers or shopping malls

man im here with my four string axe and I want to cut off some new heads

so they understand that now I truly sing the body electric

look at me wracked with spirit as the music makes me writhe

I fucking licked heroin and I licked apathy and I licked ungratefulness

I still lick fucking booze

it can never imprison me but fuck I enjoy a glass of absinthe before I strap on my axe

I licked writing lyrics too and now its all just raining down

its a nice day here in london

gotta do some rehearsal which I hate

bobby smith invited us to his festival

didn’t he?

how can ya say no to that geeza ?

even I think he’s fucking good!

can he play ye olde six string bass..? hell yeah!

for that reason alone I am here

London England

2 more days and they set me free upon that stage

have you ever plucked a fucking bass guitar thats turned up really loud in a big room..?

have ya ever sung into a mic and heard yer voice reverberate round around

carrying your words to every corner and crevice..?

have ya ever stood on stage and felt that sheer racket as it all takes off..?

I have

and I never get sick of it

and I can’t wait to give London a good dose of the Church

(and all the other places but I especially have a feeling about Glasgow!!)

we are a great little combo

hey

thats all I wanted to say

Stevie K in a tiny Fulham hotel room

feeling very very good

darkening elliptic

the weather had penetrated my dream

some impossible task

im a fish in a jungle

mescal has blown open the door

a female voice : oh I love it when its blurry

you and me are six again sister

they’re having a party downstairs and they think its funny to drag us out of bed

oh see the children perform…

me with my stupid poems ha ha ha they all go

you with your little dance aww ha ha ha they all go

they sent us back to bed but we grew up and we went our own ways

I delved  in the darkness of a nightclub into my own enveloping racket

oh the vortex was sucking me off baby and nihilism astride

my eyes and ears shot I resorted to telepathy

a velvet death enveloped me

wake up she said its not funny anymore

and here was my mother

you’re that nice man that singer

voice in another room : you wrote that song

doctor with accent : look I won’t bullshit you maybe a year

a year later I was playing poker

2 one eyed jacks and my colt 47 cocked

I got myself in the arm and the game folded

I walked outside and it was tonight

the rain the sea the fishnchip shops

the beach is deserted and the sea is sullen

probably none of this even happened darling

I’m just imagining something because I’m so stoned and tired

all those groaning shells all those swooping gulls all those green n red lights

yeah all it all went so blurry

oh cook me some more of those biscuits and a cuppa tea

im an English king from the olden days sitting on the floor

im mad as the maddest lake

strangers walk up n shake my hand

I can’t remember passwords and the pins

no attachment the blank screen of memory

the pool is a viscous maw

the cafe is a zoo full of primates

the car is a travelling side show

the night is another night is an other night

I type like an imprisoned marquis within a cell

I add jam to the biscuits

the tea is warm and milky

oh boy now its so cosy

its so quiet except for the sound of the rain n distant traffic

somewhere out there terrible things are happening

I keep my head low in soft darkness

every future open ups

the courtyard and the plants

the painting on the easel unfinished

cat asleep under table

music from some time that never came

gallery of fast lives

the dark skinned black eyed night came to me as a woman

the seashore was empty

the gulls suddenly divided over my head

I was drunk and dissolute upon these strange sands

she talked in her language of evenings long past

the stars escaped from her curling mouth

the moon backlit her haloed head like a cemetery angel

in the fields a murmuring distant choir

as if rain drops evaporated on us with a gentle ssshhh

in the astral beyond us the 2 strangers kissed

in the opium lips of the night with her tongue of cloud

in the dreamiest kiss before you awake

in the kiss full of love and full of desire

as you’re waking up on a beach under the stars

a kiss full of sea foam and the roar of space

a kiss as you wake up naked and you just appeared

and the smell of the nights neck behind her hair where you belong

behind the wind out of the night where you had wanted to be safe

where you had wanted to fall asleep

where the night wove around you her warmest spell

dissolving the ache in your ear and your poor stabbed eyes

you stumble up the stairs to sleep

where there are no mornings

yeah you feel like a fool your guitar still strapped on

sliding on the deck of a yacht

admiring the Ferrari in the garage

you rushed through the tunnel of lives

under the glow of some other sun

oh the booze was everywhere

and every night a feast

yeah then you were young again and you laughed on the verandah snorting drugs

yeah you wandered down the sea like a fucked up mariner home on leave

you looked like the disaster of an admiral now busted down to an anchor man

all the motels all the aeroplanes all the dinners in restaurants

all the fish in the ocean

all the thoughts in a single brimming brain

music rushing through the sound of the surf

one morning ya wake up in hospital

one morning ya wake up with a pretty girl

one morning ya wake up in a coffin and youre fucking freezing

one morning ya wake up in Stockholm and its snowing

one morning ya wake up in Belgrade and you’re lost

one morning ya wake up washed up at Bronte so you buy a bag of hot chips

one morning ya wake up and its raining but the night stayed over anyway

and every raindrop enters the earth at free fall speed

and every earth revolves around every sun in an expression of devotion

and theres a cup of tea and she hands ya yer phone

and someone somewhere else is ringing ya about some fucking show you gonna do

and ya can’t remember your name and you don’t even want to

and yer mask has cracked good and open and you can’t be bothered watching

sleep is a delicious certainty and you roll the dice with expertise

you don’t have to know anything or do anything

no more practice no more struggle no more thrashing

no more smashing up the detritus the idiot has left behind

the green sea the dark night the silver rain

I remain behind an I will pay my bill