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Never trust the internet or the TV for information concerning the value of life,
those are beans they’ll never spill.
They just go on poking holes in your sense with that dollar,
and if the money doesn’t get you then the worry will!
And you can think what you like about that, you’re bound to like what you think,
but it’s right there and it’s right then that your possibilities begin to shrink!

Now once upon a time was enough! and not too many people know that.
But when it comes to final payments and valuations and solving the riddle,
there’s no use passing round the hat.
My eyes opened as the pennies dropped, I started living and the shaking stopped
I was flying by the seat of my pants but now I’m not,
No, no flying by the seat of my pants but now I’m not!

Living in rags you’re living in ragtime, why give yourself a bad time?
Sooner or later, you’ll remember your sense of humour.. mmmm

Now somebody said a bird has its nest and a fox has its hole,
but the son has no place
No, no place!
And a man’s got a stock exchange and a yacht club,
and when he dies there’s an empty boat and it’s all a waste.
Oh no, no, don’t tell me that.. don’t
just let me go on calling this bluff.

Well, if this does nothing more than make you wonder, it does enough! Mmmm enough!

© Peter Campbell
Armidale 1978

One of these days I’ll listen to my heart,
get a saw and a chisel and get started.
Set a line, get a shovel, dig it deep,
start at the bottom, watch it creep
way up to the gable and a smoking flue
there’s nothing more natural for people to do.

Hammer and nails are pretty new to me,
but we’re learning what lies behind their mystery.
And we’re not afraid of working hard,
the trickiest moment is just getting started.
A place to call a family home
A place of our own,
We’ll build a place of our own.

Should we settle for shingle, should we settle for tin?
We’re still trying to get it all down on paper.
We think the windows and doors should be second-hand
’cause they’ve done it before, they understand
like anyone waiting to be thrown away,
they give it everything they’ve got to see another day.

Hammer and nails are pretty new to me,
but we’re learning what lies behind their mystery.
And we’re not afraid of working hard,
the trickiest moment is just getting started.
A place to call a family home
A place of our own,
We’ll build a place of our own.

There’s a couple of fellas laying the footings down,
and a couple of us cutting the timber.
We got a good idea where the bearers go
and we’re making the framing, taking it slow,
maybe we’re doing it twice, but we’re doing it right
I’ll get this plumbing in straight if it takes all night!

Lay down the level, come up the ladder with me.
The sun’s going down, getting too dark to see.
We can rest on a rafter, we’re worn, but the laughter is real,
and the aching’s a promise, the end will soon be upon us,
and then that sweet satisfaction is all we will feel.

And then it seems like it’s over with a wave of a hand,
but the heart goes on building for ever!
Some people may notice while others may not,
but it’s taken the patience, the fears we’ve forgotten
making the mystery that grows as you live
the heart of the home is the love that you give.

Hammer and nails are pretty new to me,
but we’re learning what lies behind their mystery.
And we’re not afraid of working hard,
the trickiest moment is just getting started.
A place to call a family home
A place of our own,
We’ll build a place of our own.
A place of our own.

Music & Lyrics
Peter Campbell
Sydney January 1982

Well I like dinner, most people do, a candle and a rose and wine for two.
A cosy evening with a knife and fork, lover’s eyes and lover’s talk, talk, talk!
But there’s something about the morning when the kids creep in,
with a smile and a story and a sleepy grin
giggling gowns and slipping feet, tumbling down the stairs to eat!

And there’s love around this table, and juice squeezed in the jug.
Oats in the bowl and a steaming teapot waiting for your mug!
Won’t you join it, cause you won’t fuss it, just come and share it, don’t discuss it!
You can leave when you must, but you must come and breakfast here with us.

And I like an egg in the morning light, you break it on a muffin and it feels just right!
The kids like faces painted on the shell; tap him on the head and well, well, well!
Bow’s a little slow, but Hannie’s doing fine, Jesse’s in the middle eating most of mine!
and back in the highchair it’s Ossie’s joke
hiding his face behind the crust and the butter and the yolk!

And there’s love around this table, and juice squeezed in the jug.
Oats in the bowl and a steaming teapot waiting for your mug!
Won’t you join it, cause you won’t fuss it, just come and share it, don’t discuss it!
You can leave when you must, but you must come and breakfast here with us.

Sit right down, someone pass the honey.
If you want to buy your lunch
you need the order and the money.
Well give him his chance if he wants to try,
I can mop it up later or just let it dry!

If you can stay a little while, well you’re welcome to, soon the kids’ll go to school and though there’s work to do,
we could find a guitar and bring the kettle in for one more cup and a song or two to sing, sing, sing.
Oh my friend, it’s not a holiday but we should take a little pleasure from it anyway.
That great big chair is where we want to be
we can talk and sing, get up to anything till we drift right into an intimate dinner for three!

And there’s love around this table, and juice squeezed in the jug.
Oats in the bowl and a steaming teapot waiting for your mug!
Won’t you join it, cause you won’t fuss it, just come and share it, don’t discuss it!
You can leave when you must, but you must come and breakfast here with us.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney 1980

Can you remember, though you were so small,
An image of old people sparkling and smiling their way down your hall?
Shy from the shadows you come when you’re told
Do you remember the comfort of having a strong hand to hold?

Who could it have been? Don’t remember the faces,
Only the feelings, only the traces.
Who could it have been all that time ago?
A moment of wonder and you were just too young to know.

And weren’t you the one with a stick in her hand,
With rain in the mountains setting out, to discover the land?
And then in the evening, when the night closed around
Do you remember a light that you followed until you were found?

What could it have been? Don’t remember the places,
Only the feelings, only the traces.
What could it have been all that time ago?
A moment of wonder and you were just too young to know.

And weren’t you the one where the breakers were breaking,
Watching the ocean, and hearing the white seabirds sing?
But when the sky turned, and all the sand washed away
Did you wonder what power can make the wind and the sea change that way?

What could it have been? Your heart still races
But there’s only the feelings, only the traces.
What could it be driving the sea?
A moment of wonder and you just didn’t know what you’d seen.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney 1969/ Moss Vale 2022

If love had its way with me
if love had its way with me.
If right from the start of me,
love had had its part of me,
if love’d had the heart of me,
if love’d had its way

It could have taken foolish childhood’s
tangled mysteries aside,
to weave a tapestry of rich and subtle promises
that would some day be untied.
Has it tried in me,
and been denied in me?
If love’d had its way

If love has its way with me
if love has its way with me.
If here in the dark of me,
love makes its mark on me
if love lights a spark in me,
if love has its way

It can free this restless passion
from desire’s golden thorns.
And meet the weeping heart’s embrace
with endless vision,
when all my vision’s gone.
Has it drawn to me,
and been stillborn in me?
If love has its way.

So I will take these threads
that life has left me with,
and I will bind them round the dreams
that time has blessed me with.
And holding my future and my past,
I will cast myself adrift upon this sea,
completed in the love that flows around me.

If love had its way with me
if love has its way with me.
If love can depend on me
for what love might intend for me
til love calls an end to me
as love has its way

It will lead hope’s dying hands
to where faith’s healing waters have always run.
And overflow the ageing heart
as the tapestry comes undone.
What has been won in me?
What has begun in me?
When love has its way,
When love has its way,
If love has its way.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney March 1980

The turning green of autumn’s patchwork apron round the bay,
her ribbons falling soft along the shorelines.
Weathered board and shingle through the pinewoodâ
and low across the water’s silver, shaken through the birches, sunlight shines.

And beckoned to, these strangers, through New England’s season
climbed among the ragged blue, the wild and knotted coves
and then the moody greys and greens of evening,
to drift into October’s changes, gathering to warm before your stoves.

We long for the snow to fly, but the sun shines still
though older hands all promise that it will!
And in my dream I see them, my children with their hats pulled,
and snowmen down below the old Blue Hill.

And distance turns to trusting, and the first and awkward smiles
into the loving and the giving of embrace.
Hand to hand and heart in heart’s communion, tables laid with candles bright and joyous
in the light of friendship’s face.

And the nights of wine, and music’s gentle honesty
the forgiveness and discovery of caring.
The sunshine Seagull breakfast in the morning
Oh those ladies and gentlemen, the closeness and the love time given brings.

And now the barns have filled, and it’s time for splitting wood.
I would split some of our own if you think I should.
And though this journey’s growing older, and though the nights are growing colder,
we would stay a little longer if we could.

The turning green of autumn’s patchwork apron round the bay,
her ribbons falling soft along the shorelines.
Weathered board and shingle through the pinewood
and low across the waters silver, shaken through the birches, sunlight shines.

© Peter Campbell
1979 Blue Hill, Maine USA

We had a few drops this morning but you couldn’t call it rain,
Some cloud blew in at dawn but blew away again.
You’ll sometimes see a little green and though it lasts a day or two,
The grasshoppers’ll take it before the cattle do.

The weary shrug their shoulders now, some stay on, some move away,
Some reckon it’s been as bad before but just what happened they won’t say.

Waiting on the weather, waiting on the sky.
The stock won’t last much longer and the tanks are dry.
The young ones pray the rain will fall and all the tanks will fill,
And the old ones pray forgiveness for believing they never will, again.

There’s still so much to get used to, though it’s eleven years in June,
This time we joined the sheep too early and lambing came too soon.
And then August came so windy they couldn’t take the chill,
Lost over half, just over night… I guess we’re learning still!

So we take the feed right to them now but the hayshed looks so lean,
We think we’d be wise to give some more away judging the future by the way it’s been.

Waiting on the weather, waiting on the sky.
The stock won’t last much longer and the dams are dry.
And the young ones pray for miracles though now some just pretend,
And the old ones pray for patience and muster the sheep to send away.

We came to find our peace upon the land.
I came to feel the soil upon my hands.
And despite the lonely battle that it’s been,
I’ve begun to feel a long and joyful silence
Growing somewhere deep within me.

And now it hardly seems worth saying with so much worry on our minds,
But I can’t help feeling part of some design.
Drought may change the colours and even turn a life to grey,
But now I’m past believing that’s too great a price to pay.

The ploughing’s almost over now, could have had it all done today
Except the bottom 30’s fence is down and all the rams have got away.

Waiting on the weather, waiting on the sky.
The stock won’t last much longer and the creeks are dry.
And the young ones don’t know what to do so they sit and wait for rain
And the old ones laugh, and go inside and get down on their knees again.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney 1969

South and west you travel slow the island.
Her highland cold and lonely faces
weep their endless tears and fear tomorrow.
Below them still Hermione fills and overflows,
and rocks the child until it slips
and falls beyond her fingertips
down its lifetime tortured highway,
fast and torn its reckless road will follow.

One last wild river going down.
Shallow tears just hurry on her drowning.
Is there nothing can deliver
this tired and old life-giver?
One last wild river going down.

The fall through time, the dizzy senses reeling.
The kneeling pines, the raining forest
mist the hidden valley’s deep horizon.
Sassafras to leatherwood entangling,
and the myrtle to the creeping green
that hang and twist their arms between the rocks,
around the giant trunk,
to curl and swoop across the swirling sky.

One last wild river going down.
Shallow tears just hurry on her drowning.
Is there nothing can deliver
this tired and old life-giver?
One last wild river going down,
Going down, going down.

The churning silver race, the rapids thunder.
Underneath cathedral walls
her tumbling free and haunted hymns are singing.
Down and down, creation’s wild communion
sip the wine, taste the curse,
the bitter truth, the lonley thirst
for wisdom here, the wilderness without the wounds
the touch of man is bringing.

Who cannot hear these rivers helpless voices?
And who will give the choice away
to men with interests vested in destruction?
Dam the flow, you damn the flowing future
half the truth is half the lie,
we cannot make this sacrifice,
their power will take it from you,
with this sacrifice, there is no resurrection!

One last wild river going down.
Shallow tears just hurry on her drowning.
Is there nothing can deliver
this tired and old life-giver?
One last wild river going down,

Going down, going down.

© Peter Campbell
Perisher Valley 1982

I did not know Sarah Jane, a few months old when tragedy came
creeping to her sleeping door, and stole the key.
No-one saw her slip away, no-one will forget that day.
Melissa lived eleven years and when she died, there were so many tears
as everybody felt the blame, and helplessly they called her name, but it was over.

If life could be a song, it may be brief, but it may be long enough
to recognise the melody we all sing.
Closer than breathing, alone on the wing
but the life’s not in the song, it’s in the singing.

And Helen grew to thirty five with no-one to love her left alive.
So she bore a child to take their place,
and the love was there behind the tiny face,
sometimes she saw it, sometimes she’d just ignore it.
And Charles grew old before his time, unemployed throughout his prime,
bitter and so much afraid, more for not being needed than for not being paid.

If love could be a gift, it may be small, but it may be great enough
to lift the burden of the tragedies of living.
Simple as receiving, simple as believing
that the love’s not in the gift, it’s in the giving.

And when a father dies creation shifts, his vessel drifts beyond our dreams
beyond our tears, down the wind into the restless ocean’s care
but we still have a death to bear.
Then the children weep to feel the kiss, but it’s the wisdom, the laughter they’ll miss,
for a daughter, and a son, the end has come, the song is sung, the gift is given.

If only hope could be a sail, to catch our grief, and blow away the boat
that bears our sorrows and our failing.
And maybe save us, from our feelings, but the same boat bears our healing,
And the hope’s not in the sail, it’s in the sailing.
The hope’s not in the sail.

© Peter Campbell

Never trust the internet or the TV for information concerning the value of life,
those are beans they’ll never spill.
They just go on poking holes in your sense with that dollar,
and if the money doesn’t get you then the worry will!
And you can think what you like about that, you’re bound to like what you think,
but it’s right there and it’s right then that your possibilities begin to shrink!

Now once upon a time was enough! and not too many people know that.
But when it comes to final payments and valuations and solving the riddle,
there’s no use passing round the hat.
My eyes opened as the pennies dropped, I started living and the shaking stopped
I was flying by the seat of my pants but now I’m not,
No, no flying by the seat of my pants but now I’m not!

Living in rags you’re living in ragtime, why give yourself a bad time?
Sooner or later, you’ll remember your sense of humour.. mmmm

Now somebody said a bird has its nest and a fox has its hole,
but the son has no place
No, no place!
And a man’s got a stock exchange and a yacht club,
and when he dies there’s an empty boat and it’s all a waste.
Oh no, no, don’t tell me that.. don’t
just let me go on calling this bluff.

Well, if this does nothing more than make you wonder, it does enough! Mmmm enough!

© Peter Campbell
Armidale 1978

Silence slips between us,
 solitude complete.
Stillness clear and close as heaven’s door.
The earth beats out its rhythms in slow and perfect time,
Counterpointed harmonies, life’s melodies entwined
And we fight the battle here
 where there’s time to fall in step.
The secret are still known here 
but the secret’s never kept.

Wild Places,
 someplace we can see the fathers’s hand.

Wild Places, 
someplace we can be alone with you
We need a promised land.

Maybe we’ll be wounded in the heeling,
 it’s to be broken to be sure.
Can we embrace this strange awakening together?
There’s wisdom carved into creation, 
the old relationships defined,
As forbidding as her truth may be,
 we learn her ways with time.
We learn to take it as it comes,
 we can’t change faster than we can,
Already we’ve grown a long way from the children we began.

Wild Places,
 someplace we can see the fathers’s hand.

Wild Places, 
someplace we can be alone with you
We need a promised land.

Woodsmoke rising, 
faces alive in the firelight.
Forsaking the road,
 making it home to be there tonight.
The young making good
 what they found in the wood,
 what they learned on the land
Putting dreams back together, 
talking it through,
 reaching out for the hand.
The young making good
 what they learned in the wood,
What they found on the land, reaching out for the hand.

And there’s a moment caught suspended,
 communion borne between out eyes.
Our vision clears, 
it’s golden flight ascending,
And we have seen what we have come for 
and we will some day see again,
But we have climbed into the mountains,
 so we must climb back down again.
We take it as it is, crazy with love and disbelief,
 the magic of your morning, 
the wilderness, 
the peace of …

Wild Places,
 someplace we can touch the fathers’s hand.

Wild Places, 
someplace we can be alone with you
We need a promised land.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney 1977

Laying beside me, alive again
some kind of silver dream
late July and an evening train
comes slowly down that line.
You know I’ve never been so far from home before,
it’s hard to step up with no goodbyes.

And lately I’ve been walking
more than I’ve been talking
it’s good to make this train to sit me down.
I found Paris is more the name than it is the city,
when you’ve only come to leave,
I’m riding home.

Bye, bye, let me ride
Bye, bye, feel I’ve come alive
Bye, bye, let me ride

I know where I’m going,
I know where I’ve been
and now I’m learning what it means
so many people made me feel at home
that now it’s strange to feel alone.
Seems I’ve been forgetting things I know I’ve come to do
but to say there’s more I could have seen,
well that’s as meaningless as it’s true!

Bye, bye, let me ride
Bye, bye, feel I’ve come alive
Bye, bye, let me ride

And it’s a late season,
late snow is falling on my home.
I want to be there with my family
though I know they’ve been OK
laying in the arms of Jesus
all the time I’ve been away.

Bye, bye, let me ride
Bye, bye, feel I’ve come alive
Bye, bye, let me ride

Bye, bye, let me ride
Bye, bye, feel I’ve come alive
Bye, bye, let me ride

© Peter Campbell
Huemoz Switerland 1974

City dawn, hurry on
apricot morning falling in my hand.
Paler hues of greens and blues
fading through the city days like city sand.
Country born, but city worn
keeping my distance, taking my time
living by the bay as long as I can stay
with a couple of friends of mine.

City street, walk the hazy beat,
cool drawn ferry horn through the silvered sun.
Walk the blocks around the docks
and hang in early doorways the way I’ve always done.
Winter time and the days unwind
like a promise you can see,
you live them right to the end
and then they fold you in
you see you’ve got to be,
bound to be
you’ve got to be bound to be free.

Is it only there in your mind?
No, I see it clearly now
Is it only there for a time?
No, no let me show you how.
It’s like someone saved another day,
Like the stone was rolled away.

Five o’clock and the doors are locked.
People all their faces down
won’t nod or peep around.
By the docks the lanes are blocked
by one by one, the goers home
with evening papers bought.
Hollow end for the burned-out men,
we need to pray for love
If they push my door
it always comes undone
and the light stays on above.

Hollow end for the burned-out men,
we need to pray for love
if they push my door
to see what it’s open for
I say the light stays on above.

© Peter Campbell
Brisbane 1974

Can you remember, though you were so small,
An image of old people sparkling and smiling their way down your hall?
Shy from the shadows you come when you’re told
Do you remember the comfort of having a strong hand to hold?

Who could it have been? Don’t remember the faces,
Only the feelings, only the traces.
Who could it have been all that time ago?
A moment of wonder and you were just too young to know.

And weren’t you the one with a stick in her hand,
With rain in the mountains setting out, to discover the land?
And then in the evening, when the night closed around
Do you remember a light that you followed until you were found?

What could it have been? Don’t remember the places,
Only the feelings, only the traces.
What could it have been all that time ago?
A moment of wonder and you were just too young to know.

And weren’t you the one where the breakers were breaking,
Watching the ocean, and hearing the white seabirds sing?
But when the sky turned, and all the sand washed away
Did you wonder what power can make the wind and the sea change that way?

What could it have been? Your heart still races
But there’s only the feelings, only the traces.
What could it be driving the sea?
A moment of wonder and you just didn’t know what you’d seen.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney 1969/ Moss Vale 2022

God rides alone on the perfect wave, at last it’s come within my reach
maybe we’ll meet way out beyond the beach, take the smoke and fly.
And then he found me where I’d stood from the start.
he was speaking in the distance, as he was speaking to my face
we cast a single shadow in his embrace.

He said, ‘stranger won’t you walk with me?’ but my eyes began to drift
‘you seem to need the gift of holding on’
I turned and walked back into my dream alone.
The sun fell from my shoulders as the sea began to cry
and the gulls left flaming trails across the sky.

And oh, there’s no more high,
He’s disappearing as he flies,
and the ocean is returning to the sky.

I feel so like a window broken in two
whatever’s real just passes by or passes through.
And even if I make it to the ocean and the tide still runs
it’s just waiting for a wave that never comes.

And now I’m paler than I’ve ever been and I can’t touch the sea somehow.
God knows, I’ve tried to find him there so where do I go now?
My eyes are burning, and my life is turning into glass.
And I’m falling without feeling, reeling back to catch the sea,
but the surf is too far away to set me free!

And oh, there’s no more high,
He’s disappearing as he flies,
and the ocean is returning to the sky.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney 1978

People don’t believe in nothing, anything will do.
Living’s the lie they tell but then they might as well when nothing’s left to lose.
If I give all my love for something, will I get nothing for all my love?
I’d give you anything to save me if anything’s enough.

Take hold of me, hold on to me
if there be more than fantasy, take hold of me.
So many ways of life I made my own but they left me here alone
Take hold of me.

People don’t believe in mystery but then they don’t believe their eyes.
So there may be more mystery to me, than I can see and I might have never realised.
Some people live in fear of the mystery of dying, some give the mystery of their life and stay alive.
And oh that seems so hard but I’ve been so scarred that I surrender, and see the man survive.

Take hold of me, hold on to me
if you be more than fantasy, take hold of me.
For the choice is mine though I cant define the truth I see this time
Take hold of me.

Sometimes I dream, I’m a boy again, and there’s wonder in my dream.
The outlines burned in gold, the colours like I’ve never seen.
But then I wake, youth’s faith forsaken for my broken soul’s despair’
the spinning colours fading as the outlines disappear.

People don’t believe in nothing cause they don’t believe.
They’re getting old and getting nowhere for all their pain.
But if the child can see what’s disappeared for me, I need to live that child again.
So I’ve climbed this rock I’ve stared at my horizon, it lifts me high and I can see beyond my fear.
And I don’t believe I saw the way before, but I can see the way from here!

Take hold of me, hold on to me
as I step beyond the fantasy, take hold of me.
I’m unafraid, connection’s made, there’s a saviour and a saved
a saved.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney 1976

Silence slips between us,
 solitude complete.
Stillness clear and close as heaven’s door.
The earth beats out its rhythms in slow and perfect time,
Counterpointed harmonies, life’s melodies entwined
And we fight the battle here
 where there’s time to fall in step.
The secret are still known here 
but the secret’s never kept.

Wild Places,
 someplace we can see the fathers’s hand.

Wild Places, 
someplace we can be alone with you
We need a promised land.

Maybe we’ll be wounded in the heeling,
 it’s to be broken to be sure.
Can we embrace this strange awakening together?
There’s wisdom carved into creation, 
the old relationships defined,
As forbidding as her truth may be,
 we learn her ways with time.
We learn to take it as it comes,
 we can’t change faster than we can,
Already we’ve grown a long way from the children we began.

Wild Places,
 someplace we can see the fathers’s hand.

Wild Places, 
someplace we can be alone with you
We need a promised land.

Woodsmoke rising, 
faces alive in the firelight.
Forsaking the road,
 making it home to be there tonight.
The young making good
 what they found in the wood,
 what they learned on the land
Putting dreams back together, 
talking it through,
 reaching out for the hand.
The young making good
 what they learned in the wood,
What they found on the land, reaching out for the hand.

And there’s a moment caught suspended,
 communion borne between out eyes.
Our vision clears, 
it’s golden flight ascending,
And we have seen what we have come for 
and we will some day see again,
But we have climbed into the mountains,
 so we must climb back down again.
We take it as it is, crazy with love and disbelief,
 the magic of your morning, 
the wilderness, 
the peace of …

Wild Places,
 someplace we can touch the fathers’s hand.

Wild Places, 
someplace we can be alone with you
We need a promised land.

© Peter Campbell
Sydney 1977