More Details Arising From The Kitchen Tapes
Intro by Greg, Lyrics by Trenna
Introduction
Trenna had quite a nice study desk when I first met her in 1987. It was very solid, and had one of those inlays on the desk top that look like green leather. It has three drawers on either side, and it is solid.
It was one she bought new, so it is no antique, but it is still a nice piece. It made it’s way to Kensington when Trenna moved in with me, and I still use it today.
In the left hand top drawer was stored Trenna’s notebook of poems, but there was also another book right next to it. This one contained song lyrics.
I don’t think I ever read them whilst Trenna was alive but I am aware of the story that attaches to it.
Trenna had a friend Bob. This is the same Bob who is mentioned in The Kitchen Tapes, HERE. Bob ended up marrying Trenna’s friend Helen.
According to Tren, Bob and others would come around to her and Helen’s house at 19 Mill Point Road in South Perth. Trenna would pull out her book of lyrics and Bob or others, playing their guitars would put the lyrics to music.
Then they would sing together. I asked Helen about this and she didn’t recall it. Helen thinks it may have happened when Tren lived at Bey Apartments – the same guys were involved.
The dates in the Contents page of the lyric book suggest it was in the Mill Point Road period, but who knows. Memory is such an unreliable thing.
Regardless of where it happened, here are the lyrics from the book.
The Song Lyrics From 1975
Kill the Common (Dated 19 June 1975)
When I walked into the room, I was escorted to a chair
By a man in plastic overalls and real chewing gum hair
He led me in quite normally and seated me gently down
He offered me champagne and commented on my gown
I paused before I took the glass, but he stood patiently waiting
With the glass to my eye, I gazed at the room and disliked what my eyes were creating
I’m dreaming, dreaming
What’s the meaning, meaning
Dreaming meaning
I ain’t going to die, then I’m surely high
So many strange men and women sprawled out on beds
Who all had distorted bodies and distorted heads
I heard someone clapping for everyone’s attention
He looked like something from another dimension
He stood on a giant toadstool in the centre of the room
At 7,000 years old, he was fresh from his tomb
I’m dreaming, dreaming
What’s the meaning, meaning
Dreaming meaning
I ain’t going to die, then I’m surely high
He was frightening to look at, he made me feel ill
As he said I was common and commons we kill
All the distorted bodies rose from each bed
They were circling around me, I’d soon be dead
My mind exploded, for no more I could take
Then I rolled over in bed and was finally awake
I was dreaming, dreaming
It had no meaning, meaning
Dreaming without meaning
Sure I won’t die, ‘cause I ain’t even high
The dream had frightened me, I believed it, I think
So I decided what I needed was a good strong drink
I rang room service, to send up some champagne
In my dream I drank this, now I was doing it again
When the champagne was brought in, I couldn’t help but stare
At the man in plastic overalls with real chewing gum hair
Was I dreaming, dreaming
Did it have some meaning, meaning
Dreaming surely has a meaning
Maybe I’ll die. I was really high
Am I already dead
If I’m already dead
Let me drink to my life in my bed
* * * * *
Rhythmic Cloud (Dated 7 July 1975)
I feel the rhythm pumping through my veins
I hear the songs, but I don’t hear their names
I can’t keep still, I’m moving all around
Just got to get me more funking sound
The amplifiers are turned way up loud
The music has sent me far up to a cloud
Bring me down – down – down
I’ve got to – get back down
Oh bring me down
Down – down – to Ear – t h
The music’s dying, it’s drifting away
Is there no more music, in the world left to play
My body’s turning with my arms outspread
Somehow I’ve got to get more rhythm in my head
I must be floating, ‘cause my feet ain’t on the floor
I can’t hear the music, there’s no rhythm any more
Bring me down – down – down
I’ve got to – get back down
Oh bring me down
Down – down – to Ear – t h
I’ve finally landed, but the whole world seems wrong
People are saying that no one can write a song
There’s people everywhere, but they ain’t really living
If only we could get us, some more of that rhythm
The entire world would be dancing and clapping really loud
Then all us people would be a rhythmic cloud
So don’t bring us down – down – down
We’re happy – up – on this – cloud
Don’t bring us down
Down – down – to Ear – th
So don’t bring us down – down – down
We don’t want to – touch – the ground
Don’t bring us down
Down – down – to Ear – th
‘Cause – man – what’s it – worth
* * * * *
Love Fighting (Dated 9 August 1975)
Whose place tonight?
For our weekly fight
Don’t forget to bring your gloves
There’ll be punches flying, as do doves
Hey man, don’t ask us what it’s all for
We’ve been fighting for 10,000 years or more
There’s cool cat Charlie, who’s only got one arm
But he’s able to punch out, all of Goldfish’s charm
Goldfish is actually some cat with a fin
And by now he’s used to having his face punched in
Don’t question our life, as I said before
We’ll still be fighting in a thousand years or more
We’ve got big mother Cocaine
And man she has to be insane
She sits cross legged on a cow skin rug
Greeting men and women with her deadly bear hug
Even the chicks don’t like to be a bore
So they keep fighting each week, ‘cause that’s our law
Our 10 feet tall odd bodd, we all call Shultz
Who’s really a midget that likes to wear stilts
He gets kicked and called the local freak
But he turns up as usual every week
Well, I guess we’re all just masochists
We adore the feeling of face to fists
Some people naturally will think we do wrong
If you’re not, “some people”, next week, come along
We’ll be fighting each other though we won’t be sore
Everyone will be pleaing for more and for more
* * * * *
Everyday Legend (Dated 2 September 1975)
Take a look a little closer and really try to see
If it’s happiness or fortune that you’re going to gain from me
My bones are made of silver and my bed is made of gold
And for a thousand years, every day this story has been told
You were a downtown baby, you had no name
Even though you waited, your parents never came
You always were neglected, never loved at all
When you should have been so tall and strong, you were oh so frail and small
But what do you care, it’s just an everyday legend
You say you’ve heard it all before
It’s going to keep on happening
Just as it has before
It’s just an everyday legend
The day of your 11th year you turned into a mute
People patted your silent head, because you were so cute
You gazed at them, your lips so tight, but your eyes were saying plenty
Although your heart cried out, you remained the same till the day that you turned 20
Then you opened your mouth, but you closed your eyes, and to the world you said
Until now you hadn’t lived at all, until now you had been dead
Finally you were going to be rich, you would make yourself a name
And be accepted socially, you would never be the same
But what do you care, it’s just an everyday legend
You say you’ve heard it all before
It’s going to keep on happening
Just as it has before
It’s just an everyday legend
But oh you were so foolish to speak so terribly loud
When you had no intention to come down from that cloud
So you finally became an apple core, you rotted in the sun
All your goodness slowly evaporating, till finally you had none
You tried to win my heart, but I saw through your evil plot
You would have me for my money, because I had such a lot
And now I’m asking, for your sake, not to tell any lies
But to try and look at life as it is, through your, now, closed eyes
* * * * *
Cancer is No Great Romancer (Dated 22 October 1975)
I love this world, when I lay with you
I can feel that you’re happy too
But Darling I’ll be leaving soon
And there is nothing I can do
You can’t always win the one that you love
For your friends may be quicker than you
You can’t always live in a world filled with love
When cancer is living in you
My closest girlfriend is your wife
You loved her when you wed
But alone one night, you told me that
Your love for her was dead
You turned to me to give you love
We cheated your wife and my friend
My conscience could not allow her to know
But I guess she would know in the end
You can’t always win the one that you love
For your friends may be quicker than you
You can’t always live in a world filled with love
When cancer is living in you
The cancer that grows within me now
Is known to only me
So I’ll just vanish from our mixed up world
And set your conscience free
You can’t always win the one that you love
For your friends may be quicker than you
You can’t always live in a world filled with love
When cancer is living in you
* * * * *
You’ve Played Your Cards Sister (Dated 2 November 1975)
He of course, announced me casually
You smiled, as if to say
Hi! How are you doing?
What brings you out this way?
Well my love, it’s been some time
An awfully long, long time
Since my fingers touched your silky hair
And caressed your slender form
I know some people, can understand
That we were born like we are
But ninety out of an average hundred
Can not accept us so far
I’ve died so many times
Since you said you had to leave
You needed money, more than my love
So you married, out of greed
My brother’s wealth captured your eye
You played your cards just right
Now you finally have all that you need
Except what you need every night
I know some people, can understand
That we were born like we are
But ninety out of an average hundred
Can not accept us so far
How do you feel, when you go to bed?
And he’s aching to make love to you
Do you tell him, you can’t turn on with him?
But with his younger sister, you do
Come on, tell me how you feel?
Does it make you ache inside?
Do you wish you were back in my loving arms?
And forgetting those nights that I cried
I know some people, can understand
That we were born like we are
But ninety out of an average hundred
Can not accept us so far
* * * * *
Portrait of a Mill (Dated 11 November 1975)
Each night I see, the lighted hands, of the mill turning round
Forming a brilliant golden haze in the sky and on the ground
It looks kind of like a Ferris wheel, at a show with no one there
Portraying a silent loneliness, there’s eeriness in the air
Occasionally some tourists come, to see this famous site
But they look around the mill in silence, afraid to stir the night
Then as quietly as they had come, they quietly depart
Leaving the mill alone again, and breaking some more of its heart
The hands of the windmill that slowly turn around
Are symbolic of the wheat that they once ground
The mill now stands in silence sadness, remembering days that have gone
And it seems to me, it’s now silent role, is so terribly wrong
In earlier days, when the mill was young, it didn’t look the same
There were people hurrying everywhere, from miles around they came
They brought their carts of wheat for the modern mill to grind
It was the busiest mill in the country, the only of its kind
But now the mill has come to a halt, it grinds the wheat no more
And the carts are no longer filled with wheat as they were before
They lay in peace alongside the mill, in a graveyard of their own
Remembering the long hard days, the happiness they had known
The hands of the windmill that slowly turn around
Are symbolic of the wheat that they once ground
The mill now stands in silence sadness, remembering days that have gone
And it seems to me, it’s now silent role, is so terribly wrong
* * * * *
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3 replies on “The Mill Point Road Song Lyrics”
Love the lyrics Kill The Common… what a twist at the end…talk about nightmares.
Hi Helen, thanks for reading the lyrics.
When I first read them I wasn’t all that impressed but as I transcribed them I started thinking quite a lot deeper about them, and was admiring of them.
They’re quite psychedelic (especially “Kill the Common”) which isn’t surprising for 1975.
My favourite was the one about the Old Mill, very close to where the two of you lived. I went and had a look at the Old Mill yesterday, and they have removed the lights that used to be on the sails, and which Trenna refers to in the first line of that song. More authentic, I guess, but less romantic!
My memory fails me regarding Tren’s poetry and we were living in South Perth when she wrote these last poems. We weren’t taking drugs or even drinking much mainly because we couldn’t afford it and yet her poetry comes from a brain that wasn’t the average. It’s a shame Tren didn’t pursue it but isn’t it wonderful that we have the bits we have.