Coles Lane Crossing

[Verse]

And I felt pressed and dried like a flower

In between the pages of their lives

Like a chapter added to a story

Neither of them meant to write

And there was violence under every word he said

He would raise his hand for silence

As if to slap at the very air between us

And then he'd do much more than that

And my mother, she had been a singer

In a going nowhere band around our town

And my father would wait in the car to pick her up

But then he never put her down

And I met him at the railway crossing

Where the Hume did it's best to miss Coles Lane

And he took me as far Mullengandra

And then he drove me home again

And he was neither handsome nor a thinker

But he talked and talked until I had to smile

So when he laid his arm across my shoulder

I let him leave it there a while

So when my school called my mother with a question

I had only seen that moment in my mind

For I was already on a train to Sydney

Leaving all you ghosts behind

[Chorus]

And time keeps marching on me like a soldier

Knee-deep in the mud but pressing on

And now I cannot go home until all you ghosts are gone

And that might take more time than we have left in all these clocks unwinded

Unwinded

[Verse]

And I had savings from a job last Christmas

I got myself a room above The Cooper's Arms

And I would watch all the pretty boys on King's Street

Hailing down those passing cars

By now I couldn't even hope to keep you secret

Swollen heavy as the yoke around my neck

And when the doctor told me you were holding healthy

I knew my mother's own regrets

And I met him on way home from the station

But I had failed again to join the daily grind

And he was lean and seemed hungry for conversation

By then I was hungry all the time

[Chorus]

And time keeps marching on me like a soldier

Knee-deep in the mud but pressing on

And now I cannot go home until all you ghosts are gone

And that might take more time than we have left in all these clocks unwinded

Unwinded

[Verse]

But there's nothing I wouldn't do for you my child

You're the only thing I know is truly mine

So when he laid his arm around my shoulder

I let him leave it there a while

[Chorus]

And now we cannot go home until all you ghosts are gone

No, we cannot go home until all you ghosts are gone

Now we cannot go home until all you ghosts are gone

And that might take more time than we have left in all these clocks unwinded