LIVING IN A HOUSE (Words and Music - Robert Childs)

There were all those splits and fights
Days of anger and heavy nights
We were all doing our best to express
All that frustration and loneliness
The Fabulous Four at Centennial Hall
Dylan and the Band at the Palais Royal
Karl Marx and Mao Tse Tung
Ginsberg chanting at the Town Hall with his harmonium
Our fathers tried to draft us
We disobeyed them and the media laughed at us
I can't recall everything that was done
I can only perceive what we've become

Living in a house at West Lakes
With a catamaran and a colour TV
Living in a Spanish villa
With a Japanese garden
A Monstera
And a rubber tree


Shocks to the system, blows to the heart
The big build up and the tearing apart
Condemning the world from Victoria Square
With desperate words and songs of despair
The heroes and villains on our monochromes
Assassinated in our three bedroom homes
We watched in amazement at the visions of gloom
From the edge of the grave to the man on the moon
Elements of con and the supersellout
The obscenity of life and death so clearly acted out
I sit here numb, I can't move my feet
It seems so obvious who suffered the defeat

Living in a house at West Lakes
With an automatic kitchen and a colour TV
Living in a Spanish villa
With a Japanese garden
A Monstera
And a rubber tree

Meditating in the midst of a storm
Three a.m. embraces on a moonlit lawn
Levels of consciousness, layers of truth
Transcendental arguments washed down with vermouth
We sat in a circle and held each others hands
We tried to change our lives with our alternative demands
The rain fell upon us and the bitter winds moaned
As we divested ourselves of everything we ever owned
Naked ideals beginning to wake
Caught with a power as the ground began to shake
I don't know what I feel, I can't even ask how
To learn the truth about where we are now

Living in a house on the Gold Coast
With a bedroom of possessions and a burglar alarm
Living in a Mexican ha?enda
With a bottle of tequila
And a coconut palm

There was hate in my heart and a fear in my gut
As the wind blew behind me. My defences were cut.
Here I was just another fat calf
Solving everything with a cynical laugh
I tried to stay cool, I tried to stay out of view
I closed my shell on people and quickly withdrew
I sat here alone and never said very much
Drew back from that reality that I dared never to touch
With too much kidding and too little thought
There I was convinced that I could never be bought
So was it a surprise when I had noone else to blame
And I finally discovered that I was the same

Living in an old farmhouse
Watching all the neighbours build their redbrick shrines
Living in a kind of suburb
With bigger backyards
And fewer powerlines

The neighbours come in and the neighbours go out
They keep to themselves their roles never in doubt
Maybe you can see them there washing the car
Free from depression and paranoia
They're daily routines completely mapped out for them
From indescribable contentment to irrepressible boredom
Maybe you can see them out there in the street
Keeping their values distinctly discreet
We look out our windows and the neighbours look in
Their faces familiar, their destinies grim
We look in our mirrors and the neighbours appear
We can hardly suppress "What am I doing here?"
We lie in our beds while the wind blows our drapes
And we try to distinguish the many fugitive shapes
We lie in our beds, roll over and fart
Living in a house that's falling apart

Living in a house at West Lakes
With a pair of silver shoes
And a washing machine
Living in a state of anaesthesia
With a Ficus decora
And the disco scene

Living in a house
Living at a bend
Living in the world
Following a megatrend
Living life so breezy
What fool ever said
Life was never meant
To be
Easy?