Manilla NSW

That I happened to a town once

Is of no consequence to my story

But i burned all of my diaries

The day a town happened to me

I guess I should've called you

But payphones there were just so hungry

I was busy writing headlines

Like 'postbox eats the hand of lady'

Who fixes stamps to cutout competitions

She kisses each letter she mails

This is how i found Manilla, Manilla New South Wales

Cold beer for welcome stranger

Choose to refuse and so politely

Is to risk the danger

That they'll raise the kind of hell known only by the New South Welsh

To be heard along the Namoi banks

And out across the distant ranges

You've had so many lovers

Your brothers would be so proud of thee

But one way of another they've drifted to be beside a sea

While the information clock has tied a knot

With both it's hands and holds us by our tails

We're all bound by time to Manilla, Manilla New South Wales

Can you pick a grave for me in the ruins of cordial factories

Where flavoured flowers grow pirouetting in cul-de-sacs

Miss the sound of clickety clacks on tracks that trains won't go

And out through windows

The shop keepers gape out over the landscape

They're praying for sales

Religion makes more sense in Manilla, Manilla New South Wales

Here's to the folk behind fences

Furtively readjusting denches

A chorus of corellas

Form clouds over saturday benches

Where old men sit and lick tobacco papers

They look like a harmonica band

As the sun tiptoes down Manilla St

And slowly comes to land

I may make me a home in Manilla, Manilla New South Wales