Darren Hanlon - Manilla NSW lyrics

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 NSW 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 NSW 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 NSW 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 NSW