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Coppertown Blues (M Fix, M Cryle - Control) As a child in the ‘60s, I grew up in the industrial town of Port Kembla, NSW. I went to school underneath the stack (school and stack are both gone now), and my father worked at the ER&S - nicknamed by locals as ‘Eat, Rest & Sleep’. My friend (and fellow Port Kembla brother) Manfred Rentz suggested writing a song describing life in the industrial town. It wasn’t always pretty.
From the CD 'Lines & Spaces' (2014) or Download from CD Baby
(Click on Image)
There’s a hole in the ground where the chimney stoodand a phantom in the skyThere are tales that are lost in the rubble and dustThat'd make a grown man cry Of bottom lines and dollar signsthat no one could refuseWhile the stacks all burned - the big wheels turnedCoppertown Blues See my dad he was a copper manAnd a company man I guessdoing 9 to 5 keeping us aliveIn the pay of the ER&S When the sky came down in the high school grounda siren told the newsjust one street back, in the shadow of the stackCoppertown Blues Eat, rest, sleep, as the holy smoke came down.Deals done cheap, still buried in the ground& when the wind blew west, feel a burning in your chestand coal dust on your shoesCoppertown Blues I went north when the town went southand some just hung aroundliving with the whores and ghosts on Wentworth StreetThat haunt the copper town When the big stack fell that I knew so wellI saw it on the newssome had tears for the company yearsCoppertown Blues Eat rest sleep, as the sulphur rain came down.Deals done cheap, who knows what's in the groundthe Oleander thrives where nothing survivesthere's coal dust on the roofsCoppertown blues