Nothing Much Happens in Sydney
Nothing much happens in Sydney
Nothing much happens at all
Unless you count all the cricket
And tennis and squash and football.
Nothing much happens in Sydney
No life on the streets or in town
That's unless you count all the tourists
But then they do stick around
The things they always call 'icons'
Like the bridge and the rocks and the beach
You see there's nothing much happens in Sydney
Not too much to do in the heat.
There's one special building in Sydney
Right on the water it stands
Its roof looks like sails made of concrete
No wonder it's stuck on dry land
They called it the Opera House somehow
Not sure why they did at the time
Its got concerts and shows does the Opera
But not that much singing in rhyme.
Nothing much happens in Sydney
We're too far away don't you see
That's unless you count all the cafes,
Restaurants and brasseries.
Nothing much happens in Sydney
Some say it’s the arse end of the world
It takes a whole day to get anywhere
Anywhere else on this earth.
So why has the number of people
Who live here quite gone through the roof?
There's close on four million in Sydney
That's if they're telling the truth.
Perhaps things do happen in Sydney
Perhaps it isn't that bad
Perhaps there is life here in Sydney
But we take it for granted and have
A view that our city is lacking
And I find that really quite sad.
It's time to wake up to Sydney
It's time to open our eyes
Where else in this world that we live in
Are signs saying 'Arancini and Pies'?
The truth is this land called Australia
Was first settled by the dour pommes
Now there's every race in Australia
Yet we still feel we don't quite belong.
We think that nothing much happened
From when we got here till today
Our history's stuck in a closet
Locked up with the key thrown away.
Now two hundred years is a long time
A long time in all history books
But there's something quite strange about Sydney
We miss things 'cause we don’t look
For the history that does surround us
In every part of this town
That history's living and breathing
If only we do look around.
There's the barracks and then there's the gaol house
Which for maximum impact were planned
To keep these new Australians
In line with the laws of the land.
The gaol house, it stands on a corner
On a higher part of the town
People looked up to the goal house
And the law on the people looked down.
There's clear sentiment in this story
A sentiment best not forgot
And that we won’t value our future
If we don't value what we have got
From the people that were here before us
Our ancestors here on this land
If we don't get to know our own history
Then our present we won't understand.
19 October 2004
David Keig
poem by David Keig
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Related quotes
Now You're Here
No, we don’t care where you come from
Now you’re here
No, we don’t care where you come from
Have a beer
We don’t care if you are black or white or
Of another hue
Now you’re here in Western Sydney
Now you’re part of Western Sydney
Now all over Western Sydney
We love you.
We are very proud of our diversity
Out on the streets it’s very clear to see
We don’t care if you’re a Christian or a Jew
Or a Bhuddist or Islamic or Hindu
‘Cos we don’t care where you come from
We don’t care where you come from
We don’t care where you come from
Now you’re here.
We’re very proud of long history
And we pay respect to Aborigines
And there’s just one thing I’ll tell ya
Yes, to you and other fellas
That we don’t care where you come from
Now you’re here.
No, we don’t care where you come from
Now you’re here
No, we don’t care where you come from
Have a beer
We don’t care if you are black or white or
Of another hue
Now you’re here in Western Sydney
Now you’re part of Western Sydney
Now all over Western Sydney
We love you.
We’re proud of where we are going
You can see
We’re using all our creativity
To build a better future
And we’ll get there soon we betcha
‘Cos we don’t care where you come from
Now you’re here.
No, we don’t care where you come from
Have a beer
We don’t care if you are black or white or
Another hue
Now you’re here in Western Sydney
Now you’re part of Western Sydney
Now all over Western Sydney
We love you.
Now you’re here in Western Sydney
Now you’re part of Western Sydney
Now all over Western Sydney
We love you.
poem by David Keig
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Sydney my Love
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
Pretty pretty place,
Plenty- plenty beauty.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
First rays of sun –
Spread here fun,
Splendour and majesty,
Nothing so beauty.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
Tidy beaches, green green trees,
Heavenly blowing cool cool breeze,
Kissing the shore waves sporty.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
Fort Dension, port Jackson,
Kings Cross, Opera attraction,
Harbour bridge, Bondi beach,
Place to find calm & peace,
Sydney is our identity.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
Kangaroo, emu, blue mountain,
Adventure, romance, 4x, fun.
Flora fauna, folk, fidelity.
Sydney my love, Sydney my city.
poem by S.D. Tiwari
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I performed in Sydney some years ago for the Sydney Festival and I am just so pleased to be returning to the wonderful Sydney Opera House and also performing in Melbourne for the first time.
quote by Lesley Garrett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sydney!
Picasso sold! This painting has just fetched A$20.6 million at auction. Learn how it will help us tackle one of the biggest health challenges of the 21st century.
Austalia!
Last night we saw one of our precious daughters Tharindu in the Skype from Dandenong North!
O once that withered flower with much obstacles bloom again, thank you very much!
'Mom & Dad! We're going to Sydney'
O that sounds good, travel dear
Because the life is a journey!
Do not worry we're behind you as the itinerary Guides!
Sydney Harbour Bridge, Darling Harbour, Opera House, Woolloomooloo,
Australia Centre, Opera Bar, Queen Victoria, King street, Pit street Mall
Bondi, King's cross, Paddington, Botany Bay, Tower Sydney
Sydney Cricket ground once I hit a glorious sixer in my previous birth!
Look around and your poor skinny Native Aborigine Mom & Dad there with the usual smile!
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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The Bonny Port of Sydney
The lovely Port of Sydney
Lies laughing to the sky,
The bonny Port of Sydney,
Where the ships of nations lie.
You shall never see such beauty,
Though you sail the wide world o’er,
As the sunny Port of Sydney,
As we see it from the Shore.
The shades of night are falling
On many ports of call,
But the harbour lights of Sydney
Are the grandest of them all;
Such a city set in jewels
Has ne’er been seen before
As the harbour lights of Sydney
As we see them from the Shore.
I must sail for gloomy London,
Where there are no harbour lights,
Where no sun is seen in winter,
And there are no starry nights;
And the bonny port of Sydney—
I may never see it more,
But I’ll always dream about it
As we view it from North Shore.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Old North Sydney
They're shifting old North Sydney—
Perhaps ’tis just as well—
They’re carting off the houses
Where the old folks used to dwell.
Where only ghosts inhabit
They lay the old shops low;
But the Spirit of North Sydney,
It vanished long ago.
The Spirit of North Sydney,
The good old time and style,
It camped, maybe, at Crow’s Nest,
But only for a while.
It left about the season,
Or at the time, perhaps,
When old Inspector Cotter
Transferred his jokes and traps.
A brand new crowd is thronging
The brand new streets aglow
Where the Spirit of North Sydney
Would gossip long ago.
They will not know to-morrow—
Tho’ ’twere but yesterday—
Exactly how McMahon’s Point
And its ferry used to lay.
The good old friendly spirit
Its sorrows would unfold,
When householders were neighbours
And shop-keeping was old;
But now we’re busy strangers,
Our feelings we restrain—
The Spirit of North Sydney
Shall never come again!
poem by Henry Lawson
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Breakdown
My car is broken
Dead as a dodo
Key in ignition
Won’t turn at all
I was about to
Drive down to Sydney
Now I am waiting
For mechanics to call.
My car is broken
Stuck in the driveway
Wholly immobile
Won’t start at all
Now the mechanic
Is working inside it
And I am hoping
That he’ll fix it all.
He says it is moisture
Got into the system
We had a big storm
Which heavy did pour
But there’s no progress
In his daignosis
Now I am worried
He can’t fix it at all.
My car is broken
Dead as a dodo
Key in ignition
Won’t turn at all
I was about to
Drive down to Sydney
Now I don’t think I’ll
Be driving at all.
The man couldn't fix it
He called a tow truck
Now it is raining
So heavy again
And in the morning
To get down to Sydney
I think that i'll be
Taking a train.
poem by David Keig
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Actually, Sydney is my second favourite city on earth, I love Sydney, but this is the greatest.
quote by Jeffrey Archer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Last Man Standing
My eldest is in China
On the way to the Li Jiang
She’s seen the Terracotta Warriors
In a place that called Xian.
My youngest, she’s in Sydney town
Her love in life is reading books
She has a sense of fantasy
And red curled Irish looks.
Me? I am in Pearl Beach
For others paradise
But I am on my own up here
And lead a damaged life.
I suffer from depression
And that’s very clear to see
For though the sun is shining high
It looks so dark to me.
I have many close that hold me
I am lucky in that way
They love me just for me being me
And don’t seem go away.
But the track of time’s unwinding
Each year, past friends are lost
Sometimes illness, now a suicide
And ‘gainst their names I put a cross.
For I am the last man standing
I’m like those soldiers made of clay
I am the last man standing
I am not going to go away.
I am the last man standing
For I have a hand of cards
That others wish that they did have
But being the last’s becoming hard.
For my eldest is in China
My youngest still in Sydney town
Although they are away from me
My heart is with them now.
Look! My greyness, it is passing
Now I can see the sun!
I know they love me for being me
Not for what I have not done.
For this thing called life is fragile
But it has a strength within
Not brittle like those warriors
But as fine as porcelain.
poem by David Keig
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And currently, there are four to five new works in the pipeline for upcoming celebrations such as the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Australian Federation, my 50th Birthday, and Sydney Dance Company's 25th Anniversary.
quote by Graeme Murphy
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ship from the Thames
Stay, ship from Thames with fettered sails
in Sydney Cove, this ebb of tide;
your gear untangled from the gales,
imprisoned at your anchor ride.
The portly gentleman who are
the pillars of the land come down
and greet the Newcomes voyaged far
to make a name in Sydney town.
The Recoats, too with shouldered arms,
marshal pale wretches from the hold,
who, cramped in tempest and in calms
have learned to do as they are told.
Flash phaetons fill the streets to-day;
inn-tables rock to sailor fists;
the Governor, while the town is gay,
checks over new assignment lists.
Aloof, the slandered and abhorred
behold from of a quarried rise,
the cause of all the stir aboard
a fiercer glitter in their eyes.
poem by Rex Ingamells
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Sydney-Side
Where's the steward?—Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do—
I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you.
Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that’s growing wide,
But I think I’d give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-Side.
Run of rocky shelves at sunrise, with their base on ocean’s bed;
Homes of Coogee, homes of Bondi, and the lighthouse on South Head.
For in loneliness and hardship—and with just a touch of pride—
Has my heart been taught to whisper, ‘You belong to Sydney-Side.’
Oh, there never dawned a morning, in the long and lonely days,
But I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays—
And as fresh and fair in fancy did the picture rise again
As the sunrise flushed the city from Woollahra to Balmain:
And the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red,
And the coastal schooners working by the loom of Bradley’s Head;
And the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide—
All the life and light and beauty that belong to Sydney-Side.
And the dreary cloud-line never veiled the end of one day more,
But the city set in jewels rose before me from ‘The Shore.’
Round the sea-world shine the beacons of a thousand ports o’ call,
But the harbour-lights of Sydney are the grandest of them all!
Toiling out beyond Coolgardie—heart and back and spirit broke,
Where the Rover’s Star gleams redly in the desert by the ‘soak’—
But says one mate to the other, ‘Brace your lip and do not fret,
We will laugh on trains and ’buses—Sydney’s in the same place yet.’
Working in the South in winter, to the waist in dripping fern,
Where the local spirit hungers for each ‘saxpence’ that we earn—
We can stand it for a season, for our world is growing wide,
And they all are friends and strangers who belong to Sydney-Side.
‘T’other-siders! T’other-siders!’ Yet we wake the dusty dead;
It is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead;
We it is that ‘trim’ Australia—making narrow country wide—
Yet we’re always T’other-siders till we sail for Sydney-side.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Australia
Opportunities are available in all walks of life in australia
So if youre young and if youre healthy
Why not get a boat and come to australia
Australia, the chance of a lifetime
Australia, you get what you work for
Nobody has to be any better than what they want to be
Australia, no class distinction
Australia, no drug addiction
Nobodys got a chip on their shoulder
Well surf like they do in the u.s.a.
Well fly down to sydney for our holiday
On sunny christmas day
Australia, australia
No one hesitates at life or beats around the bush in australia
So if youre young and if youre healthy
Why not get a boat and come to australia
Australia sha-la-la-la sha-la-la-la
Australia sha-la-la-la sha-la-la-la
Everyone walks around with a perpetual smile across their face
Australia sha-la-la-la sha-la-la-la
Australia sha-la-la-la sha-la-la-la
Everyone gets around and nobody can ever get you down
Well surf like they do in the u.s.a.
Well fly down to sydney for our holiday
On sunny christmas day
Australia, australia
song performed by by Kinks
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Road to Gundagai
The mountain road goes up and down
From Gundagai to Tumut Town
And, branching off, there runs a track
Across the foothills grim and black,
Across the plains and ranges grey
To Sydney city far away.
It came by chance one day that I
From Tumut rode to Gundagai,
And reached about the evening tide
The crossing where the roads divide;
And, waiting at the crossing place,
I saw a maiden fair of face,
With eyes of deepest violet blue,
And cheeks to match the rose in hue --
The fairest maids Australia knows
Are bred among the mountain snows.
Then, fearing I might go astray,
I asked if she could show the way.
Her voice might well a man bewitch --
Its tones so supple, deep, and rich.
"The tracks are clear," she made reply,
"And this goes down to Sydney Town,
And that one goes to Gundagai."
Then slowly, looking coyly back,
She went along the Sydney track
And I for one was well content
To go the road the lady went;
But round the turn a swain she met --
The kiss she gave him haunts me yet!
I turned and travelled with a sigh
The lonely road to Gundagai.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.
quote by Sydney Smith
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One of the most wonderful memories in my life was when I sang at the Opera House in Sydney. I will never forget that. It is one of the most beautiful Houses I have ever sung in my life.
quote by Nana Mouskouri
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Darker Side Of Sydney
There's more than glitz and glamour to Australia's biggest city Sydney has it's darker side
I've seen so many young people there their lives by drugs and booze destroyed
By trees in small parks and dimly lit laneways they sleep on the hard and bare ground
Near to where there's wealth and opulence there's great poverty to be found.
Many seem to think that for their poverty they only have themselves to blame
That they are lacking in their self worth and do not have a sense of shame
That they spend all of their welfare money on the buying of narcotics and booze
But it doesn't seem right to judge somebody if you have not walked in their shoes.
For to support their vices they must sleep rough and live on the cheap
And in the laneway off of Bourke St on the hard concrete they sleep
Yet I dare not criticize them and of them can only say
That they are the less fortunate of people and in life have lost their way.
One could say that their vices for them are now out of their control
But the weakness of the flesh is not a weakness of the soul
The soul of the poor and down and out despite the body's disrepair
Can have far more depth and feeling than the soul of the millionaire.
Australia's largest city to so many a sense of pride
But despite it's wealth and opulence Sydney has a darker side
And where there is glitter and glamour such great poverty abound
And far too many people living poor there and sleeping rough on the bare ground.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Sydney
My mind wandered on the hillsides
above those english fields
the smell of hay the prick of gorse
the meanings clear to me
the sun was never setting
twilight bestrode the day
and the feelings i was feeling
would never go away.
this was my blessed england
this is where i was born
this england now forgotten
while i live on fatal shores.
i stole a half a sixpence
i needed it for bread
then i was here transported
and am the walking dead.
i am now here in australia
the convict nation found
when ships do cease their sailing
and when they run aground.
its not easy in this foreign land
its hot and dry and hard
but the soldiers here amongst us
sell us rum and whisky jars.
for its too late to make conscience
a real matter in the day
one drink one drink one drink of rum
and my dreams they float away.
it was magical at landing
after four months on those seas
we could not walk in a straight line
with our sea full wobbled knees.
we hunkered down in sydney
we were sent out straight to work
we lived in a small compound
with dry biscuits as our perk.
we stitched and sewed rough garments
we worked with fingers raw
we worked and worked and worked
till we couldn't work no more.
our home was called the factory
we never got outside
we never saw that sydney
a distant twenty miles.
i've told it like it was then
i'll tell it to the world
about that female factory
and all us factory girls.
poem by David Keig
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They Make Them Tough In Beech Forest
They make them tough in Beech Forest it has become a well known place
As the former home of Cliff Young the ageing man who won the great race
From Sydney all of the way to Melbourne some two decades ago
Even in death the great man's legend does seem to grow and grow.
Forty five kilometres south of Colac the nearest big country Town
And though Beech Forest has a small population 'tis a place that has won renown
For it's hardy breed of people who possess great pride of place
A pride and courage that Cliff Young displayed in his greatest ever race.
They make them tough in Beech Forest in the potato growing countryside
The achievements of Cliff Young their most famous athlete to them a source of pride
A stranger there made to feel welcome of which many do testify
Of their friendly and hospitable nature of them none can deny.
They make them tough in Beech Forest the once home of the great Cliff Young
For his Sydney to Melbourne ultra Marathon winning run
His praises have been sung
One of the hardy breed of men from that famous place south of old Colac Town
Who from Sydney all of the way to Melbourne jogged his way to renown.
poem by Francis Duggan
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You Tell Me Of Your Australian History
You tell me of your Australian history your ancestors were British and Irish pioneers
But your history in this Land is not an old history just two centuries and twenty years
And in time that may seem quite a long span though the combined life spans of three people nothing more
Your ancestors hardly were Aussies they came here from a distant shore.
The first Australians have lived in this Country for longer than most care to know
Their ancestors came here from Asia more than sixty thousand years ago
They are indigenous to this Country all others have links to elsewhere
Yet they still struggle for recognition and that to me seems quite unfair.
Dispossessed by the Northern invaders they never did get back their Land
And that they are now ruled by white people I find that hard to understand
You talk of the history of this Land as if it were only two hundred years old
But then suppose the history of the ancient Dreamtime by white people will never be told.
I was not even born in this Country which makes you more Aussie than I
And though I'm not Nationalistic or Patriotic my heritage I won''t deny
You talk of your pioneering ancestors but why talk of Human history at all
If the history of the first Australians you do not see fit to recall.
You tell me of your pioneering ancestors but one fact you tend to ignore
That they were not born in this Country they came here from a foreign shore
You''d swear by you the Human history of this Land was only two centuries old
But the true history of this great Country by your type will never be told
poem by Francis Duggan
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