I really didn’t have any idea what this song was about when I wrote it. I had no agenda, no plan, just four chords and some mumbled lyrics in a demo.

I took this tune to the band to see what they could make of it. As such it was the least finished before rehearsals started.

Everybody wants to be like me, everybody wants to sing like me, everybody wants a song that that they sing when they’re down on their luck in the lucky country yeah

Everybody wants to move like me, everybody wants to walk like me, everybody wants a dance that they do when they’re living on the edge of a gone memory.

Everybody wants to believe. Oh

Don’t Mind The Eye Of Beholder (Will Merydith via Flickr)

The run of verbs moves through being, singing, moving and dancing, suggesting further and deeper corruption of the individual. The corruption runs deep until a person is no longer sure who they are or what they believe….

The song is so wordy. It feels like I’ve sung an essay and the tune is less than a minute in.

The lyrics are a little uncomfortable and feel egotistical to sing.  It’s a song about a country with a reputation for anti-establishment larrikins becoming a country of anxious conformers.

Everybody wants to be like me, everybody be real like me, everybody wants to know who they are, what they said, better say, better go, better leave

Everybody wants to be on the edge, nobody wants to be too fringe, everybody winds up in the middle of story that is told, that is telling to the end.

Everybody wants to be free

Everybody is cautious, concerned with taboo, wants to be considered as someone with an edge, but ultimately it’s only skin deep. It’s a clothing label, a sleeve tattoo, an ironic tee.

Night-walking in the middle of the road, still talking about the end of the world, road forking to the left to the right turnaround sit down contemplate what you owe.

Everybody wants to…

Teenage nights wandering suburban streets looking for mischief, talking and solving the ails of the world, drinking wine cooler, parroting what our teachers, parents and media taught us.

The song is out of words now. Jay comes in with some lovely harmony lines and the song builds a swinging momentum through the guitar solo, the solo ending with the rumble of Rob’s toms blasting like thunder out of the late summer sky.

Will the rain come this year and clean off the scum, the veneer, the gentrification, the sunburnt hypocrisy? Will the great south land be as great as the one it could have been?

Everybody wants to be like me, everybody be real like me, everybody winds up in the middle of story that is told, that is telling to the end.

The threatened liberation never occurs!