Delusions Of Grandchildren

All The Other Times: we wrote this around January 2005, just mucking around in the practice room one night. Really that’s all we do in there. It was a pretty easy song to knock together, once you have a riff like that the song practically writes itself.

Blue: this was the very first song we wrote after “resuming rehearsals” again after doing the tour for the singles album last year (2004). Justin from the label was in the room with us for some reason and he dug it straight away. We had recorded a pretty good demo of it ourselves. I recorded the dogs barking on the night before we mastered the whole EP in May. I was dropping Pascale off to cubs and we walked around the streets of Ennogerra looking for houses with high fences, with my minidisc recorder running and headphones on. When we found dogs we’d hang around getting them all wound up, which was fun. I added it to the track at about midnight that night.

Delusions Of Grandchildren: so it was originally going to be a single, then we decided to make it an EP – but we needed more songs, which we didn’t have. I had this one sitting around on the computer not doing anything which was kinda handy. We decided to call it Delusions… just so we had a track by that name. Dean thought of the title – well, it slipped from his mouth one time anyway, like a lot of great and funny things often do.

Time After Time: Kellie wanted to do a Cyndi Lauper song, but I wasn’t so sure it would work. Anyway we set up a little lapel mic down the hall running into the 4 track, and another mic close to the strings. I learned the song in about 5 minutes, ran through it twice, our friend Paul hit RECORD and we recorded it. There was tons of good background noise, cars going by etc, which added to the feel, and gave us something to run with. Kel did the vocals standing in front of the computer in my room and we mixed it up right there.

Summer Rat: another piece of music we had lying around for about 6 months, demo-d but with no vocals. I wrote the words the night before we mixed the song, so that was the first time I ever sang it. Kel plays the keyboard and there’s no bass guitar, which is kinda weird in spots, but not too bad overall.

Modern Morning: We wrote this one the week before recording, in February. We were still arranging it and getting the vocal parts sorted as we were actually recording. The instrumental ending was totally on-the-spot improvised; it’s kinda miraculous that it worked. The song started getting crazy in mixing, we added timpani drums and synth trumpet. We even had a reggae style snare echo going on in parts, but that was too much. The surprise package.

Nuts To This: We rehearsed in the same room as Powderfinger around 4 years ago, and one night Kellie and I stayed back and recorded this song on the 4 track using their Rhodes electric piano (don’t tell them by the way, we never did) and a creaky cranky old analog synth of ours we had lying around. We spent the next 4 years saying “we should mix that song” to each other. Then the opportunity finally came along to use it. Phew. Kel named the song because it reminds her of the “peanuts” theme tune. The live drums on it are actually Dean’s drums from Modern Morning, slowed down and cut up.

Lyrics

All The Other Times I’m not up for any more drinking I concur / I lit the match too early I forgot where I were / I held on too long I burned my fingers thinking of her ‘n how I can’t handle the truth / Feels like I haven’t been collected from school / I’m waiting there an hour for you ‘n I know that you’ll / Say that you’re sorry but I think you’re just being cruel / But I ain’t got any proof / Last time would be the last time / Just like the time before that and all the other times / I heard you calling at a quarter to two / I don’t mind if you don’t mind I’m kinda tired too / You said I’m not consistent so listen when I’m talking to you if I’m making some sense / But there was nothing that I hadn’t heard before / I stopped listening about twenty to four / why don’t you call anybody else any more I’ll give you twenty five cents.. I’m not dying of suspense / This time will be the last time / Like all the times before that / And all the other times / This time will be the last time / Like all the times we had / but all the other times weren’t bad / I spent a lot of time staring at the floor / [like a] mechanical bull I’m all wound up but I am bored / I’m all plugged in but I’m being ignored / I’m just about to make a run for the door / I came in late I was trying to miss it / But now it’s my fate to sit through it once more. This time..

Blue There was movement outside the window / But the train was standing still / I woke up and thought we were leaving / But it wasn’t until / I heard you calling / In the corner of my eye / And everyone looked like statues waving goodbye / That I thought of remaining / And I thought that you would too / Some days there’s no explaining why you feel blue / Tyre tracks on concrete / spraypaint in my hair / In my dreams I dreamt that I could taste you in the air / It all evaporated in the sunlight and I’m left standing there / Waiting in the corner of the carpark just for you / Don’t ask me why I didn’t call ‘cos sometimes I didn’t want to / I’m licking all my wounds and making out like you don’t make me feel the way you do / One day it’s all a lie, the next day it’s all true / One day there’s only one way of explaining myself to you / When there’s nothing to say and there’s nothing to conclude / Some days there’s no explaining why you feel blue / Some days there’s no explaining / You were getting smaller / Fading from view / Some days there’s no remaining true / Tyre tracks on concrete / Spraypaint in my hair / In my dreams I dreamt that I could taste you in the air / It all evaporated in the sunlight and I’m left standing there / Waiting in the corner of the carpark just for you / Don’t ask me why I didn’t call well sometimes I just didn’t want to / I’m licking all my wounds and making out like you don’t make me feel the way you do / One day it’s all a lie, the next day it’s all true / There are days when I can’t think of anything to do / Some days I can’t say anything to you (it’s true) / Some days there’s no explaining why you feel blue / Some days there’s no explaining why you feel blue.

Delusions Of Grandchildren Come on come on / won’t you ever learn? / Come on come on / just let your body burn / Come on come on / now you know you don’t belong / you don’t belong / no you don’t belong / Come on come on.

Summer Rat I was on my way home from a night off when the lights went off / And the world below me seemed to shift about / It was only for a nanosecond but I had to stop and do some checking / That I wasn’t just freaking out / Everything looked slightly different it was all distorted sorta / Magnified and glowing like I was only half awake / And surfaces were all reflective / I knew I should make the most of this perspective, that I could make / Late last night I was a small town killer / I was a criminal I was a cop / Summer rat / I was a vampire bat / and there’s a million ways to be what you’re not / I don’t wanna be cynical / I ain’t trying to be clinical / I’m not trying to pretend / you will ever be the way you were / [cos] I won’t ever be the way I was / don’t ask if I know how we end / Saw myself in things I couldn’t imagine before / A new one coming at me all the time / And all the world’s sins they came up like old friends / But I don’t even know which ones are mine / I saw a bit of every bad thing ever done in everyone / And I felt like a fuckin snowball in hell / The membrane’s so thin but I was kept from falling into total oblivion so well / Late last night I was the knave of diamonds / I was a sinner dressed up as a saint / Summer thief with olive leaf in teeth / yeah there’s a million ways to be what you ain’t / I’m not getting cynical / I don’t wanna be clinical / I’m not trying to pretend / That I can fold myself in half one more time / oh don’t ask how I know / I just know I can’t do it one more time / Saw myself in things I couldn’t imagine before / A new one coming at me all the time / And all the world’s sins they came up like old friends / But I don’t even know which ones are mine.

Modern Morning Can’t ya just tell the man where we’re driving towards / I wasn’t kidding when I said there’ll be no rewards / I can move my arms and legs though they’re tied down with cords / I take it as a kinda modern warning / I can’t allow for solitude to be my eyes / I can’t rely on common things to get me by / I live in a tall building but I don’t like the sky / I’ve been staring at it since Monday morning / I tried to kill off all that could be killed / my instincts all failed me and I started to build / A towering pile out of every last thing that I own / It looked so beautiful like a monument to truth / But I couldn’t light it up it was piled up to the roof / And I’d put so much effort into burning up my youth / They were the only things I found worth keeping / This is my stop can you slow down for me here / I’ll meet you on the corner some time next year / I’m gonna go down see what this currency buys / I’ll fall in love with everything just to see its demise / Here comes the morning but I ain’t ready / Here comes the morning but I ain’t ready / Here comes the morning but I ain’t ready / I want to break everything into a million parts / If I could break anything where would I start? / How little I know and how lemony everything tastes / And I’m scared of blinking in case I’m replaced / If this ship was sinking I’d drink to our icy embrace / And I wanna buy some time so I can just feel it race / And I’d fall in love with everything that fell into my eyes / I’d set fire without thinking and with a smile on my face / Watch the flames burn this ocean of lies.