Lyrics for a singalong of Geoff’s fav’s at Trish’s Septuagenarian Celebration, October 28, 2023
Mood Up! (Cathy’s Song) © Words and Music Geoff Boyce. Saigon. October 2023
(Inspired by our tour guide)
Chorus:
Mood up! (Mood up!)
Mood up! (Mood up!)
Come put a smile on your face
Make the decision
Join the happiness mission
For the whole human race.
Verse 1:
You can decide to be happy
You can decide to be free
You can decide …(you know that) you can decide
The way that you want to be.
Chorus
Verse 2:
I know you’ve got your troubles
I know how it can give you a frown
But what good’s a long face
Will it solve the disgrace
Of all the wars going down?
Chorus
Chorus
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In Times Like These (Trump and COVID)
Concept, tune and verse 1, Steve Earl, 2020
Adapted Words and Arrangement, Geoff Boyce. October 2021.
- In times like these
Makes me wanna get down on my knees
Pray to heaven, someone help us, please
Find our way again
In times like this
When it looks as dark as it can get
Makes me wanna give it up and quit
Then I remember when…
Boat people from Vietnam,
and those Chinese students from Tienamin
We welcomed them with our open arms
‘Cause they had no-where to go. - In times like these
Multimedia monopolies
No condemnation of their corporate greed
And doin’ what they please
In times like these
“Movin’ faster, and break-in’ things”
That’s the creed that makes stock markets ring
Collateral damaging…
In our politics of secrecy
Undermining our democracy
Whatever happens to the people’s pleas
For those who’re suffering? - In times like these
Black lives matter, so does climate change
Been doin’ nothin’, and feel no shame
In times like these.
In times like these
I remember Keating’s Redfern Speech
Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King
Worth remembering…
In times like these.
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Listen to the Whisper
Words and Music (c) Geoff Boyce, 2014/2017
Don’t you know, you’re breaking my heart
Don’t you see how you tear us apart
Can’t you hear the cries
You’ve believed the lies
Listen to the whisper
Listen to the whisper
Listen to the whisper
Of my broken heart
We don’t know we’re breaking your heart
We don’t see how we’ve torn you apart
We don’t hear your cries…
We’ve believed the lies…
But we’ll listen to the whisper
Listen to the whisper
Listen to the whisper
Of your broken heart
How can we make a new start
When our lives are so far apart?
Together, we must try
To heal before we die?
Let’s listen for the whisper
Listen for the whisper
Listen for the whisper
Of the broken hearts
Listen for the whisper
Listen for the whisper
Listen for the whisper
Of the broken hearts
This song was written to recognise the ongoing pain of Australian Aboriginal people who were either stolen, or had their children stolen, from their families by police acting under orders of the Australian Government, according to a misguided policy of ‘civilising’ Aboriginal children with a view to assimilating them into white Australian society.
It was written for a film of a memorial to Stolen Generation Children who had been placed in Colebrook Children’s Home, in Blackwood, South Australia. The home has since been demolished but a memorial, ‘The Fountain of Tears’ stands on the original site. The film features the first two verses of the song, sung by my son-in-law, Tim Solly and my daughter, Aly Solly.
The first verse is the voice of Aboriginal people.
The second verse is the puzzled ‘wake-up’ of white Australians, when the ‘Bringing Them Home Report’, the stories of the Stolen Generations, was tabled in Federal Parliament in 1997.
The third verse was written after the film was produced. It is a duet – two voices, black and white, implying the dilemma of different cultures trying to heal the past, while forging a common future together. It proposes not trying to change each other but accepting each other as they are, engaging in empathetic listening to each other, recognising the grief and pain on all sides.
GDB June 2017
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At The Going Down of the Sun.
© Words and music, Geoff Boyce. November 2021
(Inspired by the Farewell Party for Sandy by members of Pilgrim Church )
At the going down of the sun
Are there enough, enough safe places for everyone?
Everyone?
At the going down of the sun
When the sky lights up, like God’s party is going on
The people have all gone home.
Where you going to?
In your worn – out shoes?
At the going down of the sun
You go to your bed, cardboard on concrete can’t be so much fun
The long night has begun.
At the going down of the sun
I feel so sad, knowing that this is still going on
Could happen to anyone.
All you homeless men
Wives and children.
Interlude (verse instrumental)
I’ll remember you
In your worn – out shoes.
At the going down of the sun
Are there enough, enough safe places for everyone?
Everyone?
At the going down of the sun
When the sky lights up, like God’s party is going on
The people have all gone home.
I’ll remember you
In your worn – out shoes
At the going down of the sun
At the going down of the sun
At the going down of the sun.
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Try
Shane Howard & Denis Ginnivan. From the album, Dark Matter.
2020
(A response I choose to the loss of the Yes vote of the Referendum for an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament)
There’s a fork in the road
It’s just up ahead
It’s time to choose
The path that we tread
One leads to ruin,
Doin’ what we’re doin’
The other is a path
To a brand new start
If we try, try a little harder
Try to find, a better way
There’ll be no future, if we don’t make it
Where there’s a will
There’s a way
To a brand new day
The choice is plain
The future is clear
We have to be brave
We can’t live in fear
The world that we want
We’re goin’ to have to create
We’d better get it together
The hour’s getting late
If we try, a little smarter
Try to find, a better way
There’ll be no future, if we don’t make it
Where there’s a will
There’s a way
To a brand new day
We’re goin’ to have to work together
Every woman child and man
We have to be smarter
The power’s in our hands
In a broken world that needs to heal and to mend
A new way starts
Where the old one ends
If we try, try a little harder
Try to find, a better way
There’ll be no future, if we don’t make it
Where there’s a will
There’s a way
To a brand new day
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If Not For You
Bob Dylan 1971
(A reminder that we need each other)
If not for you
Babe, I couldn’t even find the door
Couldn’t even see the floor
I’d be sad and blue
If not for you
If not for you
Babe, I’d lay awake all night
Waitin’ for the mornin’ light
But it would not be new
If not for you
If not for you
My sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I’d be nowhere at all
I’d be lost if not for you
If not for you
Winter would have no spring
Couldn’t hear the robin sing
I just wouldn’t have a clue
If not for you
If not for you
My sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I’d be nowhere at all
I’d be lost if not for you
If not for you
Winter would have no spring
Couldn’t hear the robin sing
I just wouldn’t have a clue
If not for you
If not for you
If not for you
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