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lyrics

Begging Bowl
© Penelope Swales 
1998

Your voice right in my ear
Those luscious lips, so sweet, so salt
Whispering to me from another hemisphere.
You say "Hey, babe - tonight my feet are cold"
I'm lookin' out on the sunshine here
Every detail of your life
So near, so dear, so clear
And so irrelevant to me now
The distance, the time and the longing
So irrevocable
Have I come so far
Just to feel so faint-hearted
Wanna run back to where I come from?

Oh, freedom is an empty cup
A lot of people don't realise
It's up to you to fill it up
You can hold it out to strangers like a begging bowl
You can mix up in it your own strange brew
Of mingled joy and sorrow
I can see you now - that table!
The mess and the mice and the bongs
I can feel you now,
My senses aroused courtesy of British Telecom

Your stormy soul reaches me even here
Ya Might say I got cold feet
But babe, you've no idea
Of the ice blocks that I'm walkin' on now
Now that you're so far away from me
Oh, god, oh, god now tell me how did I get here?
But what's relevant to me now?
The phone and the road and the songs
I can feel your lush longing
It's following me around
Courtesy of British Telecom

And now you say your life is an empty cup
Well, you don't need me to tell you
It's up to you to fill it up
You can hold it out to me like a begging bowl
You can mull up in it your own strange brew
Of mingled joy and sorrow
But what's relevant to you now?
But what's relevant to you now?
But what's relevant to you now?
The distance, the time and the longing?
Or is it the mess and the mice and the bongs?
Or is it the phone and the road and the songs?
Or is it the movement, and those mountains?
Your movement in those mountains?
Hey, babe
I know you could move mountains
Oh, ho da-hey-da hey hey etc

credits

from Justifying your Longings to the Doctor, released January 7, 1998
Penelope Swales - vocals, guitar, stomp box

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Penelope Swales Boolarra, Australia

Penelope Swales has been articulating the human condition with passion and humour for 30+ years. She sings about politics, love, friendship, the unbreakable bond between us and dogs and the impact of the Internet on society. She won the 2019 Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice Award with “Cambridge Analytica”. “The Ides of March in Christchurch" was short-listed for the same award in 2020. ... more

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