"The Sydney Highrise Variations": the poetry score

This is our poetry score to The Sydney Highrise Variations by the great Australian poet Les Murray. While the CD is still in print and available at our little store to the right, it is our instinct to give music away.

The Sydney Highrise Variations

A poetry score

Poetry by Les Murray

1.
Far above the tidal turnaround
Three Fried Men

2.
Transients at speed
Three Fried Men

3.
Inked in by scaffolding and workers
Three Fried Men

4.
On its vaulting drum
Three Fried Men

5.
Also, it’s a space probe
Three Fried Men

6.
They docked at apogee
Three Fried Men

7.
The new city standing on its haze
Three Fried Men w/ Les Murray

8.
Repeat their lines repeat their lines
Three Fried Men

9.
The peajacket era
Three Fried Men with Les Murray

10.
Vanished from the central upsurge
Middle Sleep w/ Les Murray

11.
Hot-air money driers
Three Fried Men

12.
In the land of veneers
Three Fried Men

13.
The starving spirit is fed upon the heart
Robert Goetz

14.
Employment and neckties and ruling themes
Middle Sleep w/ Les Murray

15.
In ambiguous battle at length
Another Umbrella w/ Les Murray

16.
The C19-20
Three Fried Men w/ Les Murray

17.
The cantilevered behometh
Three Fried Men

18.
In the age of piety
Robert Goetz

19.
We must fly in potent circles
Middle Sleep w/ Les Murray

20.
Breath of catching up
Three Fried Men

21.
Might end, and mutate, and persist
Three Fried Men

22.
Skill and the shadow
Middle Sleep w/ Les Murray

23.
To be solar, I must be nuclear
Three Fried Men w/ Les Murray

24.
Six hundred glittering and genteel towns
Middle Sleep w/ Chris King

25.
Modernity’s strange anger
Frank Heyer

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Produced for Poetry Scores by Matt Fuller and Chris King © 2009


Published with a commentary on the poem by Les Murray's biographer Peter F. Alexander.

*
Recorded by Lij, Adam Long, Richard Derrick, Jonathan Fishberg and Alex the Turkish club deejay from Astoria.

*

Musician credits

Heidi Dean * vocals (2, 3, 11, 12, 20, 24)

Richard Derrick * bass (22), electric guitar (15)

Thom Fletcher * voice (14)

Jonathan Frishberg * organ (9, 21), percussion (9)

Matt Fuller * acoustic guitar (3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12), drums (1, 2), electric guitar (4, 8, 10, 16, 17, 21, 23), vocals (4, 16)

Robert Goetz * acoustic guitar (13, 18), vocals (13, 18)

Frank Heyer * electric guitar (25)

Chris King * vocals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24), voice (14)

Lij * acoustic guitar (1, 2, 7, 20), drums (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 17, 21, 23), moaning (7), organ (6), piano (16), vocals (6, 16, 17), whistling (6, 20)

Adam Long * percussion (1)

Dave Melson * acoustic guitar (6), bass (1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 21, 23), electric guitar (4), vocals (16)

John Minkoff * electric guitar (2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 21, 23)

Roger Moutenot * drums (16), vocals (16)

Les Murray * voice (7, 10, 14, 16, 19, 22), mouth music (15)

Carl Pandolfi * organ (12), piano (11)

Stefene Russell * voice (14)

M. Segal * drums (19, 22)

Pam Stafford * acoustic 12-string guitar (24), bass (19), keyboards (14, 22)

Christopher Y. Voelker * violin (5, 11, 20)

David Wray * electric guitar (14, 19, 22, 24)