There’s a cultural faultline that runs through Melbourne’s arts community, and it neatly divides the north and the south. If you were visiting from overseas, then the two areas you’d be pointed towards – perhaps erroneously, as they’ve both largely been yuppified out of the independent energy they once had – are Fitzroy and St. Kilda. Nowadays Fitzroy folk have slunk off to Brunswick and Northcote, which are even further north, and former St. Kilda denizens live in Elwood, which is even further south. I swear, if it weren’t for Richmond this city’d fall apart.
I think St. Kilda-ites see Fitzroyers as the dress-in-black, too-goth, intellectual glasses-wearing types, y’know, all Cure and Morrissey and stuff like that. In return, I think Fitzroyers see St. Kilda-ites as far too concerned with hanging out at outside cafe tables near the beach, kind of apolitical and altogether too Sydney for their own good. And I think they’re both right. Bacchus Marsh is where it’s at nowadays, if you want my opinion.
This song was written as a duet, but I ended up duetting with myself on the demo. Cam Rogers and I sang it as an acoustic duet in Northcote Country Soul; he pimped for the south.
Over The RiverSome people know nothin’ ’bout inner-city living
but I tend to be forgiving with you
I guess the suburb that you sleep in gets you deep in to
a creepy little point of view
It’s the way the rollercoaster shakes
Or maybe something they put in the cakes
But I’ll be under the umbrellas near the front of Rhumbarella’s
I was hoping you could be there too
So get your arse on a passing tram
And come over the river to where I am
Pack your stuff in a bag or three
And come over the river to live with me
Some people I could mention have way too much pretension
To remember how to get right down
You’d have to be mad to be glad to be consenting
To be renting on the wrong side of town
It’s something everybody down here knows
That we joke about in Greasy Joe’s
So you can wander Polyester looking fashionably depressed
Or you can meet me in the mouth of the clown
So get your arse on a passing tram
And come over the river to where I am
There’s nothing as grand as the sand and the sea
So come over the river to live with me
Down here we’re too busy having fun to get dizzy
Over missing the Dangerfield sales
Well there’s no point in discussing when the Punter’s Club is buzzing
That it’s better than the Prince of Wales
And Readings ain’t too far away
Live near the uni
Live by the bay
‘Cos nothing you can possibly do or say
Is ever gonna tip the scales
So get your arse on a passing tram
And come over the river to where I am
You’re never going to make me see
So come over the river to live with me
Get your arse on a passing tram
You don’t understand how good it would be
So come over the river to live with me.