I wanted to write a love song, but my girlfriend said "you have so many love songs, why not write about something important?". Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, I split the difference and wrote a song about watching the world come unstick with someone you love.

The End of the World (demo)

The End Of The World

I was trying to write a song making fun of evolutionary psychology, but got distracted by some of those big questions in life: why was I such an idiot that time? And then twice more for good measure? And why am I still a bit of an idiot sometimes? Why don't I ever learn? Really, it's *not* facing these kind of questions that sends people off to start wars, or build real estate empires, and other kinds of evil. Me? I just write a song about it and keep on being an idiot from time to time. (Hopefully less as I get older).

Hinterland

I wrote this a few weeks ago, initially as a joke but while I was doing it I realised I was so pissed off with the cruel narcissistic and self-serving morons running our country that I was actually serious. This is a quick live demo, I'm about to record it properly for my next album "Songs for the end of the world"

Demos

Overthrow the Government (Demo)

Parody song about energy policy highlights and lowlights (mostly lowlights) in 2018, written by members of NEMchat, a national network of energy consumer advocates across Australia. No one accepts any responsibility for any of the views or bias implied or expressed in any lyric, with the sole criteria being to never let the facts get in the way of what seemed to be a ‘good line’ at the time.
Lyrics by Craig Memery with Dean Lombard and Mark Henley, set to the tune of 'I Was Only 19' by John Schumann.
Lyrics:
August 2018 saw the passing of another party leader
After the false start on the NEG
Six attempted spills in as many years and it was Scott who drew the card
Malcolm donned his leather jacket and he left
 
Though the sun shines on our rooftops and the wind blows through the trees
and every energy contract proves the cheapest power is green
Half the coalition seems convinced that coal is clean
God help me 
Is this 1919?
 
From the Wentworth by-election, to the fate of Matthew Guy 
The polls have made it obvious for months.
And the school kids went on strike to say we should not be led by
morally bankrupt bought and paid for chumps
 
So can you tell me, ScoMo where's our climate policy?
And can we leave cross ownership to the ACCC?
And what's this rash that comes and goes... Oh it's Abbott's coterie
God help me
Their IQ’s 19
 
A banking royal commission, for some CEOs, their last one on eight figures
Though they hung onto their wealth
When that was over attention turned to the energy execs
Who pointed fingers at everybody else
 
They blamed wholesale contracts, and said network prices soared
One CEO was honest, but sadly not his board
And Andy got the boot one day, it surely did appal us
God help him
He was goin' home in August
 
And I can still see Andy making plans for a world without Liddell
(Though not til 2022, huh)
And I can still see Andy smirking silently behind Jay Weatherill’s shoulder
While he was tearing Josh a new one
 
Yet the Energy Council never mentions emissions intensity
And the stories that Chris Kenny told us never made much sense to me
I caught an hour of Question Time, the whole bunch of them are dead to me
God help me 
Bring on 2019
 
So can you tell me, ScoMo where's our climate policy?
Have you noticed no-one else thinks coal's fair dinkum energy?
But bad ideas they come and go, so I'll tell you what it means:
It won't matter,
From May 2019

Bring on 2019 (A policy in the light green)

A demo of part of a song written on the theme 'Reluctance' for the West Song songwriting collective.

Reluctance (demo)

Cover of Essie Williams song 'Car Crash' done for West Song songwriting challenge. I loved this song from the first time I heard it – partly because it's simply a great song; and partly because it spoke to me, what with my long history of knowingly rushing headlong into disasters.

Car Crash

Car Crash (Essie Williams)

I'm not sure if there is a Planet B or not. But it won't matter f we just take care of this one.

Songs From the End of the World

Planet B

Planet B V1 Rough Mix

My first attempt at writing a song on a synth instead of a guitar. Used my Roland Juno-106 for three different monophonic lines, added a simulated TR-808 for the drums, recorded the lead vocal with a Bell & Howell 302 PA mic (Shure CA80C ceramic capsule)and, basically, had a ball trying to sound ominous while singing new lyrics about authoritarianism amid a global pandemic. Fun times indeed.

Songs From the End of the World (demos)

Don't Panic

The land we live on was stolen from the original inhabitants of this Country. My ancestors didn't steal it – they came here more than a century after the invasion – but they still received stolen goods. This song is an acknowledgement that I have benefited from the theft of land from the Kulin Nation, and an expression of my wish for restitution and a true and genuine reconciliation between our peoples.

Frontier Wars (demo)

This is a song I wrote in 1995 for my band Wild Honey. It was a crowd favourite. It's strange looking back on it now, a song by a 27-year-old reminiscing about when he was 22 and how life had changed from the excitement of a new relationship with a cute fellow singer-songwriter to the drudgery of a five-year-old relationship with two toddlers.
My friend Tan was a fan of Wild Honey back in the day (we were active from 1993 to 1998)and got in touch recently asking if I had a recording of this song, cos she liked it. I didn't – I didn't even have a copy of the lyrics or chords – but I found it in the dark recesses of my brain and decided to record a simple demo to send her.
Recorded live in my spare room, with a NUDE Stereo Blumlein Ribbon Microphone on my 1957 Maton Premier 45A guitar, and a Røde M3 on my voice.

Cider

Cider (demo)

Songwriter and musician based in Melbourne, Australia

darkdirk