HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR CUSTOMER

Yeah G'day... It was Stuie's birthday when KC were in Toronto, Canada at a Japanese restaurant, so the boys organised a cake for after dinner. All the staff came out with sparklers to sing Happy Birthday. When they got to the penultimate line they hesitated ever so slightly and then sang "... happy birthday dear CUSTOMER. "There's your album title right there... The song is a ficticious story about a small town cake shop owner conducting a doomed affair with a married woman.

LOVE SUBLIME

A love song. The kind you would sing about your baby if you were a long way away and you didn't know when you would be together again. Delivered with a smooth loping gallop. Velvety vocals Mr Gallgher... Velvet brandy with honey drips.

WHERE COULD I GO BUT HOME

Stuie came up with the chords for this one, Brendan wrote the words and melody and Michael helped with the arrangement. It's for some friends the boys have had, all men in their early 30's, who have taken their own lives in recent years. No note, no nothing. Just didn't come back one day. This is written from a heavenly perspective, trying to say the great unsaid.

I WAS RAISED, I WAS LOWERED

About the vagaries of being an overnight sensation as noted by a bemused observer. Insert relevant name here (Scandalous, Bardot, Marilyn etc). Good time fun... and funky too.

LUCKY

There but for the grace of God go you and I. Brendan's reaction to the Stolen Generation report. Imagine yourself in that situation and being whisked away from your family at a young age or watching your siblings being carted off never to be heard of again. And our political leaders just keep rubbing salt into the wounds. This is an angry song.

MS SERENDIPITY

This song is written about Brendan's wife Lee-Anne. She's the most easy-going, unambitious person known to man. Things come to her without a lot of fuss. Brendan started writing it 7 or 8 years ago and came up with the 2nd verse just before going in to the studio to record it. Check out Stu Hunter's sublime horn and string arrangement, not to mention his tastey piano playing.

TABBIMOBLE

Across the Clarence River north of Grafton becomes sugar cane country. There's a succession of spillways numbered Tabbimoble #1, #2 and so on. When the lads tour a lot they catch up on sleep in the van, sometimes waking up and looking out the window to get their bearings. If the signs go Tabbimoble 3, 2, 1, they're heading to Brisbane; 1,2,3 and they're heading home to Sydney. In this hypnotic tone poem Brendan slips in and out of dream states and even makes it to tabbimoble number 6.

MELANCHOLY WINDOW

Brendo borrowed this title from a short story in Peter Carey's "War Crimes". The window is the sea. No, there was no substance abuse in the writing of this song. Though there seems to be some drum abuse in the middle section. The bassline sounds like a Smiths tune. Cool!

THE SEA IS A SIREN

This is Stuie's summer song. He recorded most of it on his Mac at home and his girlfriend Amber improvised the dreamy mermaid chorus line for it. It's about hearing the call of the sea as though she is a beautiful beckoning woman,.. a Siren. Brendo raps over the end of the song... not unlike Homer Simpson.

IN MY TIME 2:38

KC were sound checking at the last gig in Ottawa after a six week tour through Europe, UK and Canada. Fed up, homesick, this simple tune unfolded. Michael's wife Katie was about to give birth in Sydney. This song is about being that baby waiting to come in to the world and musing on what kind of things would be good in a lifetime.

CAN'T SHAKE THIS THING

The working title of this album was AM (as in radio... unfortunately Everclear released an album called AM Radio just after the boys thought of it). This song is a rocker, with brass line and wicked Gibson Lucille action, something like you would have heard on the AM radio around the 70's. Bouncy boogie.

DARLIN', IT'S ARRANGED

It's the old story. Life isn't always rosey. Make the most of it while it happens. It was PJ Keating, who coined a phrase "..the dogs keep barking but the caravan moves on", which appears in a bastardised form in this song. About the important things in life that will remain long after you've gone. A Beautiful closer for another fine KC album... ENJOY!