Mal's Gherkin Pram: Song Lyrics and Info

“Lancelot's Pram” Solo Music and Album (2009)

Album Track List:

01 "Mirror Mirror" - 2:25

02 "I Know I'm Not Crazy" - 3:13

03 "Free As a Bird" - 3:55

04 "What Am I Gonna Do?" - 3:57

05 "For Sale" - 2:25

06 "Better Days" - 3:08

07 "Must Be the Black Dog" - 3:29

08 "On the Night (We First Met)" - 2:53

09 "Sunrise" - 3:28

10 "Must Be a Better Way" - 3:03

11 "Latin Swells" - 0:56

12 "Wave Hello" - 1:13

13 "Bread and Milk" - 1:01

14 "Maggie's Farm" (Bob Dylan) - 4:46

15 "You Won't Remember My Name" - 3:17

16 "Helen of Troy" - 2:20 (Free CD bonus track)

Bonus Tracks (Not on original CD)

AA "All I Want Is In You" - 2:27

BB "Alone the King" - 2:33

CC "Working Class Hero" (John Lennon) - 2:59

DD "When Tomorrow Comes" - 3:18

NB. I really cannot sing well, so if the vocals seem buried here and there, there's your reason.

Enjoy the wide stereo mixes too - sounds nice thru your headphones.

Song Lyrics and Info:

Notes about making of the album "Lancelot's Pram"

When I was happily jamming with the great drummer Julian Bennett one evening in early 2009 (during the dying embers of "The Night Before" band), the basis for this song seemed to come out of nowhere. Later I realised the opening line pays subconscious respect to a song from the very first band I'd ever performed live with back in 1985, "The Party Cones". The finished song bears absolutely no resemblance to it's source tho, once I'd fleshed it out (there's even a passing Beatlemania reference in there to boot... "ooooh!"). Now it's all about the inner monologues you have looking face-to-face at yourself each morning.

Length: 2:25

When I look at you

See you staring at these things I do

Looking back with an unforgiving light

When you look at me

See those funny things I see you do

Laughing out until nothing turns out right

Yeah, I know, is what you see is me

Mirror mirror, is this not really me?

Yeah, I know you're staring back at me

When I saw your face

I saw the lines drawn in broken slate

Looking back you saw me as I am

When I stare at you

See you pointing out those things I do

Looking back you see me as I am

Yeah, I know, is what you see is me

Mirror mirror, is this not really me?

Yeah, I hear you shouting back at me

Yeah, I know, is what you see is me

Mirror mirror, is this not really me?

Yeah, I know you're laughing back at me

What happens when you're undergoing the mental trials of insomnia, and try to write yourself a song in the middle of the night instead? Things like this happen... but a nice little accident all the same. Does it really sound like the vocals are recorded from deep inside an asylum somewhere...? The "dumb machine" is, of course, my computer - both a blessing and a curse. The pet phrase is taken directly from a tiny image that's adorned my online blog for the past five+ years... just a bit of random synchronicity. Gotta love the screaming feedback over the end... the Gherkin is great for that.

Length: 3:13

Here I lay awake at night

Knowing things don't turn out right

Things I hoped now turned to rust

Tossing turning watching hours tick

I know now I'm not sick

What I dream just falls to dust

Stand, wipe some sleep out from my face

Get up, if that's the case

Turn on this dumb machine

Take a leak and wash my face

Is this now my disgrace?

Is this all there is to see?

Take a drink and light a smoke

Wonder if I'm like the bloke

Who couldn't find the me

Sit down, rough-out some empty words

A phrase, a line unheard

That I hope that might be me

I know I'm not crazy

Tho the voice in my head may be

Washed my face and wrung my hands

I'm so tired I can hardly stand

Yet I try to think again

Tossed and yearning watching hours slip

I know now I'm not sick

Let me try this thing again

Sat down, roughed-out some empty words

A phrase, a line unheard

That I hoped that might be me

I know I'm not crazy

Tho the voice in my head may be

Originally written way back in '88 (and sung way back in my CA days as well...), I've always really liked this number - I just wish I had a better voice to do it some justice. Using both the acoustics and The Gherkin together.

I'm dreaming of freedom, a realistically unachievable goal - yet quite reachable within our day-dreams? Dreams and visions give us a sense of hope...

Length: 3:55

Float like a butterfly, soar like an eagle

To be free as a bird

Fly above the driftwood, drift about the clouds

I want to fly so high and touch the sky

Had a dream that I could fly, fly away and be free

See the world from miles away

So my wings carried me

But oh, how high the wind in the spirit does sigh

I've seen the sky through my eyes

As I drempt that I flew

Saw things as they should be be

Saw the world in so much love again

So the love carried me

But oh, how high the wind in the spirit does sigh

I've seen those clouds through my eyes

Don't know where I'm going

Don't know where I've been

Don't know how the sky takes me in.

I flew through the sunrise, I sailed through the rain.

The wind takes me soaring again

But oh, how high the wind in the spirit does sigh

I've seen the sky...

Float like a butterfly, soar like an eagle

To be free as a bird

Fly above the driftwood, drift about the clouds

I want to fly so high and touch the sky.

When a singer-songwriter's night began in Bathurst in May 2009, I attended the second night to find out what it was all about, after hearing about it advertised on local radio. They asked if I'd like to play the following week and said "yes". As soon as I got home afterwards, I picked up my guitar, and this song literally came straight out in response to my own question I'd asked of myself "What am I gonna do when I play next week?"... ideas come out of the strangest places sometimes... and often quite spontaneously. I hadn't played any of my own solo material in front of an audience for years, so the hugest majority of fresh material created for this album came as a result of forcing myself into that particular experience, in a period of just two months.

I like the classic Goodies/Bill Oddie-inspired wah guitar breaks! An attempt to play 'white-man's funk'...

Length: 3:57

What am I gonna do,

What am I gonna do when I get home?

There's a time to be alone

Know everything's all right

Head rests between my knees

And dream by candlelight

Empty bed and empty heart

Feel alone tonight

Waiting by a silent phone

My mind is still not right!

What am I gonna do,

What am I gonna do when I get home?

What am I gonna do,

Where am I gonna stay

What am I gonna say when I get home?

I've been fascinated by Boston 'confessional' poet Robert Lowell's book "Life Studies" (1959) ever since the early 1980's. The lyrics here are adapted from his poem "For Sale" from part four of Lowell's "Life Studies", describing the sale of his parent's old house upon the death of his father. Musically, this song really just came out of nowhere after spontaneously jamming with the words live one night, hence just a thumpy dramatic rhythm piece ... a lot more acoustic, live and rougher... recorded deep inside one big empty. Probably the only song ever that attempts to use "animosity" in a lyric... sheesh! Oh... can you hear the 'chair' I'm playing on, as a rythmn on the right-side at points? Yes... I'm slapping on the seat of an old chair down in Milltown!

Length: 2:25

Poor sheepish plaything

organized with prodigal animosity,

lived in just a year -

my father's cottage at Beverly Farms

was on the market the month he died.

Empty, open, intimate,

It's town-house furniture

had an on-tiptoe air

of waiting for the mover

on the heels of the undertaker.

Ready, afraid

of living alone till eighty,

Mother mooned in a window,

as if she had stayed on a train

one stop past her destination.

The original song (the second part here) was written (and recorded) for the "Surprise" CD album "Fish!" back in 1989. Twas originally written in five-minutes-flat, sitting on the sofa in my parent's front room with the same old battered classical guitar I'm still using these days, all those long years ago. I've re-worked this, adding a bit of spontaneous psychedelia for the intro. I had originally planned to offer this as a bit of bizarre whimsy for "The Night Before" 's never-completed album, but instead it's turned-up here, reworked, refashioned and retooled!

For the nay-sayers: I know I'm not that good, but at least I'm having fun doing this. Strength through weakness. Oh, I take myself with tongue firmly planted-in-cheek...

There are better days ahead, even if it certainly doesn't feel or seem like it somedays.

Length: 3:08

I know I'm not that good,

But at least I'm having fun doing it.

Nothing in the world here for me

I live for something still to be

No way will I be drawn away

For what on earth could make me stay here?

There are still better days to come

Still there are better days to come

All I hear is death, pain and war

Have we not heard it all before

So why is this time so diff'rent from the last?

Don't you know this won't last?

There are still better days to come

Still there are better days to come

Still living troubled daze sometimes

Still there are better days to come

This dittie was recently re-discovered after originally been left sitting around in my old ancient scrap songbooks from way back in 1982, when I wrote a tune of what was then called "Slow 4" in a mate's bedroom late one night.

Recently refreshed and newly revised lyrics seemed to appear while I was recording this album. Just a cyclical strolling number, a gentle walking of the BD on its taught barbed-wire leash. (Winston Churchill used to nickname his depressive attacks his "black dog"). Here it includes a bit of picked delay and random slide chaos over the ending for fun.

I dedicate this song to Luke Martin - wherever your travels may have taken you to... and I sure hope the BD lives nowhere near where you are.

Length: 3:29

I, I don't know what to say

Tho it's not unusual for the way I feel today

Sitting in a dark cave all by myself

Trying to kill some time

I try to block my ears

Block my ears from the barkin' black dog

She barks at me all day and night

All I wanna do is hide

I get tired of life at times

Is there no-one on my side?

I'm, I'm feeling like a fool

It's not so unusual

All thanks to my black mongrel bitch

She yelps by me day and night

All I wanna do is cry

I get fried of life sometimes

Is there no-one on my side?

Somedays feel better than you know

Don't let life get you down, don't you worry.

It's not alright to feel like this

She sometimes comes around

You gotta run from your black hound

I, I don't know what to say

Tho it's not so unusual for the way I feel today

Must be the black dog

This was one of those pretty little songs that just came out of nowhere, 'doodling' mindlessly on guitar late at night watching nothing in particular on TV. 'Nice melody', I thought, but had no real idea exactly what I should do with it... and this is what eventually happened! I think it's a song for my late mum, perhaps? I don't really know who it's for - or willing to admit. I also appreciate all you true keyboard players out there who will laugh at my feeble attempts, but "at least I'm having fun doing it"...

Length: 2:53

This is an awkward song to have to try to explain... she lay sitting (never quite finished) for absolutely forever in one of my old scrapbooks. Upon finally forcing myself and sitting my arse down to try and nail a definitive lyric, it all came straight out in ten minutes in the end... so much for waiting all those years to finally finish this song! But that's the way it happens sometimes... inspiration can come from anywhere at anytime, rarely planned or premeditated. Yet sometimes we just have to push things thru to see them bear fruit. I'm a lazy bugger sometimes...

In my mind's-eye, I'm sitting atop Sydney's North Head watching the eastern sky slowly change colour, awaiting the return of Sol for another day. Then there was one morning at Mollymook... all so excited to watch a shared sunrise, and falling straight back soundly asleep as soon as it had passed!

I assume this is about the loss of shared experiences.

Length: 3:28

Now you've gone away

Like the dawn, passed away

Empty space heard you say

Take me back, yesterday

Closed the door upon

What we loved going on

Restfully endlessly

Walking out shamelessly

Oh, be still my love, how can you leave

Now you've seen the sunrise?

Yes, I know that you've seen

Our final sunrise

You closed the door upon

What we loved going on

Selfishly endlessly, culled so thanklessly

In the night painfully

Know what it meant to me

Smiled so graciously

Ended so suddenly

Oh, be still my love, how can you leave

Now you've seen the sunrise?

Yes, I know that you've seen...

Be still, my love,

Be still, my love

How can you leave

Now we've shared the sunrise?

Yes, we know that we saw

The perfect sunrise.

A nice upbeat, happy-sounding dittie, complete with three-part harmonies (originally written as a slow folky-style number) that actually shadows the sad tale of a shattering experience receiving and signing divorce papers via ones' mailbox... it's all ancient history and has lost all its angst now, but it cut to the quick at the time... being a divorced dad at 37 is not something I had ever planned on, but 'life happens to you while you're busy making other plans'.

Nevertheless, a fun attempt at 'white reggae', complete with a one-take guitar break on the Les Paul (with ancient strings to boot!) in the middle. It's interesting how a song's development can take such a different direction from the original conception, according to the drum loop.

Length: 3:03

September morning

I watched my heart leave

I heard her crying

With those saddened eyes

She left in the morning

No words goodbye

Turned away

Then she's gone, gone...

There must be a better way,

There must be a better way than this, than this.

November morning

Her postmaster came

Hands me the notice

For the end of my life

Heart-broken papers

Indignity

Signed away

Then it's gone, gone...

There must be a better way,

There must be a better way than this, than this.

➽ 11 "Latin Swells" (Mal Kiely © 2009) is a quick instrumental jamming piece recorded with multiple guitar tracks over a busy little drum-loop, just for a piece of spontaneous playing fun and feely-groove. The wavering layered sound makes me think of some weird surf-type music (is that the sea-salt I can taste and feel?), yet tis nothing like it! All the guitar parts were played on the "Gherkin" plugged straight into the Boss BR-1200 console, all recorded in one take - warts and all.

Length: 0:56

➽ 12 "Wave Hello" (Mal Kiely © 2009) is a short upbeat rockin' instrumental using an 'industrial' drum-loop propelling a simple hammer-riff and dueling guitars forwards. The lead backmask is simply 'marp stolecnal' - nothing too evilly subliminal about that I hope?

Length: 1:13

➽ 13 "Bread and Milk" (Mal Kiely © 2009) is simply a piece of pure silliness I did as a quick joke for my sons, sending up that whole grungy screamo scene... except this guys' just after some bread and milk from the shops, instead of the genre-regulation mayhem! Multi-layered chunky rhythm guitar parts all churning away on a simple rockin' riff, all played on 'The Gherkin'. Now, that's sure some forgettable spontaneous guitar soloing, for sure - pure fun and very silly! Don't forget the eggs...

Length: 1:01

I originally started playing this song live after basically getting fed-up of trying to keep punters at gigs happy by playing some pretty awful covers they continually requested... it was simply a way of telling people to zark off ("I aint gonna do this anymore...") and let me do my own stuff my way, I guess. This 'chaos-rock' electric version features the obvious drum loop of the intro bars from Iggy Pop's "Lust For Life", and I just chugged some multi-layered guitars and overdriven psychotic organ on top of that pounding drive. This'd be close to a 'band' arrangement - if this was a band!

Length: 4:46

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

Well, I wake in the morning,

Fold my hands and pray for rain.

I got a head full of ideas

That are drivin' me insane.

It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor.

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.

No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.

Well, he hands you a nickel,

He hands you a dime,

He asks you with a grin

If you're havin' a good time,

Then he fines you every time you slam the door.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.

No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.

Well, he puts his cigar

Out in your face just for kicks.

His bedroom window

It is made out of bricks.

The National Guard stands around his door.

Ah, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.

No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.

Well, she talks to all the servants

About man and God and law.

Everybody says

She's the brains behind pa.

She's sixty-eight, but she says she's twenty-four.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

Well, I try my best

To be just like I am,

But everybody wants you

To be just like them.

They sing while you slave and I just get bored.

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

This song originally started life as a simple rhythmic chord progression from a bit of self-jamming (what I'd describe as "doodling"). A simple little melody quickly flowed out from that, and a bit of a narrative about the trials-and-errors of the nightmare after a spontaneous late-night one-nighter came a bit later - some things seem all good at the time, but in the end it's all rather pointless, hollow and empty... maybe it's an analogy for something else, bigger than all of us...? I don't remember... but I know I enjoy playing it live.

Length: 3:17

Drunkedness is not what it's cracked-up to be

Tonight is you want it to be

Take a good look around,

You are not they is not she

Who's face is now nailed to the wall

The one you remember who's

Name you can't even recall

I know you won't remember my name

You won't remember my name, you won't remember

You won't recall or want to re-tell

Remember those good times we kept to ourselves

Morning breath is something you'd rather forget

Today is not looking your best

Take a good look around,

You are not they is not she

Who's face is now mailed to the wall

The one you remember who's

Name you can't even recall

I know you won't remember my name

You won't remember my name, you won't remember

You won't recall or want to re-tell

Remember those good times we kept to ourselves

I don't remember nor should I recall

What the girls' name was, or where I did fall

I know you won't remember my name.

Robert Lowell has been my favourite poet ever since High School. The lyrics are from one of his 1961 "Imitations" of the poet Valery's "Helene". Musically, it's a loud electric thumping march, sounding like the endless clashing of shield and sword, the biting sting of sea-salt on the bloody sandy plains surrounding Homer's Troy, based around a heavy little riff and an aggressive drum loop.

Length: 2:20

I am the blue! I come from the lower world

to hear the serene erosion of the surf;

once more I see the galleys bleed with dawn,

and shark with muffled rowlocks into Troy.

My solitary hands recall the kings;

I used to run my fingers through their beards;

I wept.

They sang about their shady wars,

the great gulfs boiling sternward from their keels.

I hear the military trumpets, all that brass,

blasting commands to the frantic oars;

the rowers' metronome enchains the sea,

and high on beaked and dragon prows, the gods -

their fixed, archaic smiles stung by the salt

reach out their carved, indulgent arms to me!

BONUS TRACKS (Not on CD)

An absolutely naff attempt at songwriting, really... but I include it as a freebie online just as a piece of extra fluff, a total out-take. How it sounded in my head sounds nothing like it does here... I think it'd work OK if someone who could actually sing had a go with it and reworked it, perhaps? I certainly miss having like-minded musical people to collaborate with on all these songs. 'tis just a silly passing harmless thought for Paige.

Length: 2:27

Although I may be old, I'm not dead yet

Age lines now growing bold, but I'm not dead yet

I still watch for a pretty face

A shy smile, a fringe encased

To you I may seem old, but I'm not dead yet

Blue shining carefree eyes

Eyes still damp from youth

From you I sense a past in me, that was me

Everything I knew has turned out wrong

Yesterdays' adventures mirror long

I may glance at a pretty face

Your shy smile, that fringe encased

Although I may seem old

I know I'm not dead yet

Yet all I want is in you

All I want is in you

Yet another song of mine that lay dormant forever, here given a bit of a dusting-off, but it didn't really work very effectively in this recording in the end. Definitely not a good song, by any means, nor not necessarily well-performed either, for that matter! Yes, someone who records their own material is always their own worst critic.

On a desert island somewhere, like a shipwrecked holy monastic, discovering the futility of enforced isolation, all lost in an instant.

Length: 2:33

There is an island I call home

It's everything that I own

In silence I live all alone

This silent king upon his plastic throne

Alone the king, he will sit,

Throughout the night, a little bit

See, on this island, there's a tree

The only living thing here, 'cept me

I dwell in shade it throws upon

These shifting sands I call my home

On the outside looking in,

Alone tonight, a little bit.

Some raging torrent that came from the sea

Now all that is left here, my home and this tree

Lost in an instant, lost to the sea

On the outside looking in

Alone tonight, a little bit

Alone a king, he will sit

Throughout the night, broken hermit

The master track here was recorded in one take, warts'n'all at 4:00 am one winter's morning, simply because I thought it captured some of the songs' rough angst. I unintentionally developed this particular raspy emotive growly 'voice' attempting to front "The Night Before" as a vocalist... it's not pretty, but sometimes quite effective... but not something you'd want to listen to all night!

There's a mix of both Lennon's and Marianne Faithful's versions in there somewhere. I like this track simply because it sounds so alien and different to what I've done before. NSFW - there are a few norty words! Thanks for all the music, nhoJ.

Length - 2:59

As soon as your born they make you feel small,

By giving you no time instead of it all,

Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,

A working class hero is something to be,