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Cattle and Cane
I recall a schoolboy coming home
through fields of cane
to a house of tin and timber
and in the sky
a rain of falling cinders
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
I recall a boy in bigger pants
like everyone
just waiting for a chance
his father's watch
he left it in the showers
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
I recall a bigger brighter world
a world of books
and silent times in thought
and then the railroad
the railroad takes him home
through fields of cattle
through fields of cane
from time to time
the waste memory-wastes
the waste memory-wastes
further, longer, higher, older

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Cattle and Cane song lyrics by the FNQ born lush, Grant W McLennan of the Go-Betweens. A friend of mine, actually. He goes home every year to the Atherton Tablelands for the picnic races there. The house in the photo above is not actually on the Atherton Tablelands, but in the foothills. It is an old sugarcane farm on the way to my brothers house. Every time I went past it, I would break into "Cattle and Cane" and think of Grant. It's my favourite Go-Betweens song ever, and actually, I sing it a lot even here in Tokyo. It totally evokes a touch of homesickness for people living far away from their childhood in the Queensland tropics. You can listen to it here.

frangipani wrote this on January 20, 2005 03:47 PM

frangipani

said:

Yeah, I love the Jimmy Little version too. He's such a beautiful gentleman, with a beautiful voice. I was there the night Jimmy and Grant sang it together at the Zoo way back in....oh, I guess it was 2000? On Jimmy's album tour. I still listen to that album a lot. Grant was so nervous cause Jimmy did it in 4/4 time which was not the original (typically unusual Go-Betweens messed up) time . As the songwriter, he was terrified of getting up and playing HIS song the way someone else played it, with all different times. I remember we had to feed him a Long Island Iced Tea (which was, at the time, his daily brunch , lunch, afternoon tea and late supper sustenance) to get him on stage. Anyway, then, next song, Ed Kuepper (The Saints) got up and did "The way I made you feel" with Jimmy. It was pretty damn special. And, actually, I organised it myself, back when I was booking The Zoo. Quite a nice coup if I do say so myself. I took this backstage polaroid of the historic moment afterwards.

Ah, those were the days.

And, ok, while I'm reliving the glory days, here's another rather cool pic I took with The Zoo polaroid - Nick Cave playing with The Dirty Three one hot,sweaty night in front of maybe only 250 people, back around the same year.

Sometimes I miss my old life.... People like Ed Harcourt serenading me (on a grand piano) and my friends for hours on my birthday at The Zoo... watching Gwen Stefani get carried down the stairs by her massive minder coz she was too messed up to walk..... Ben Harpers first ever Australian tour, Tortoise blinding everyone with their brilliance on their first Australian tour, thinking that Courtney from the Dandy Warhols was checking me out when actually he was trying to start schmoozing the guys from Green Day who were standing just next to me at the Livid afterparty.... so many stories, so little patience to write about it all...It just feels like cheap, boastful tabloid gossip. But yeah, there is money in that.... Maybe one day me and Joc and C and Narissa (Zoo owners and managers) should get together and write a (get-rich-quick) book... Nah, that'll never happen. It's all just ancient history now.

January 22, 2005 01:26 AM

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Through fields of cane...