Neil Finn, Janis Ian, Ryan Adams Songwriters' Circle

This programme contains some strong language.

It's an adventure, isn't it? We're all here, we're going to take a risk and enjoy it.

# Walking round the room singing Stormy Weather... #

I think a lot of the trick is not to get precious.

If you sit guarding your music and then somebody starts playing

and you glare at them,

It sort of ruins the whole idea of the show, doesn't it?

-It could be interesting.

-Yeah.

-Could be.

# Sweet Carolina... #

'I have to make a conscious decision to not write songs

'or I would write'

five songs a day for the rest of my life.

'I have moments like that.'

Where it just flows, but then I have long moments

where I'm just gathering.

'Was it Oscar Wilde, who when asked'

what he'd been doing that day, said, "Oh, this morning I added a comma.

"This afternoon I took it away."

# Weak enough to crawl... #

Both you cats write these classic, like, red oak tree

type tunes, you know?

These un-fellable tunes. I'm happy to, like, write the leaves.

I don't look at a night like tonight as competitive.

I look at a night like tonight as collaborative.

There's a joy of being able to collaborate.

It's a wonderful opportunity for me,

to steal the best bits I hear tonight for my own songs

that I'll write tomorrow morning.

Send them to us, they'll be on YouTube by tomorrow night.

APPLAUSE

That's very encouraging, thank you.

Good evening.

It's my job to lead off, so I will do just that.

# Tell me all the things you would change

# I don't pretend to know what you want

# When you come around and spin my top

# Time and again, time and again

# No fire where I lit my spark

# I am not afraid of the dark

# Where your words devour my heart

# And put me to shame put me to shame

# When your seven worlds collide

# Whenever I am by your side

# And dust from a distant sun

# Will shower over everyone

# You're still so young to travel so far

# Old enough to know who you are

# Wise enough to carry the scars

# Without any blame there's no one to blame

# It's easy to forget what you learned

# Waiting for the thrill to return

# Feeling your desire burn

# You're drawn to the flame

# When your seven worlds collide

# Whenever I am by your side

# And dust from a distant sun

# Will shower over everyone

# Dust from a distant sun

# Will shower over everyone

# And I'm lying on the table washed out in the flood

# Like a Christian fearing vengeance from above

# I don't pretend to know what you want

# But I offer love

# Seven worlds will collide

# Whenever I am by your side

# And dust from a distant sun

# Will shower over everyone

# Yeah

# As time comes rolling down your neck

# Like a tiny bead of sweat

# And you end up getting wet

# Let your mind go, let your mind go

# Anywhere it wants

# And I fell asleep

# As the dust laid on the ground. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

The joy of a night like tonight, as we were just saying backstage,

is you've got three completely different writers.

And rather than try to imitate each other,

we're just going to do what we do best.

# I learned the truth at seventeen

# That love was meant for beauty queens

# And high school girls with clear skinned smiles

# Who married young and then retired

# The Valentines I never knew

# The Friday night charades of youth

# Were spent on one more beautiful

# At seventeen I learned the truth

# And those of us with ravaged faces

# Lacking in the social graces

# Desperately remained at home

# Inventing lovers on the phone

# Who called to say come dance with me

# And murmur vague obscenities

# It isn't all it seems at seventeen

# A brown-eyed girl in hand-me-downs

# Whose name I never could pronounce

# Said pity, please the ones who serve

# Cos they only get what they deserve

# The rich-relationed home-town queen

# Marries into what she needs

# With a guarantee of company

# And a haven for the elderly

# Remember those who win the game

# Lose the love they sought to gain

# In debentures of quality

# And dubious integrity

# Their small town eyes will gape at you in dull surprise

# When payment due exceeds accounts received at seventeen

# To those of us who knew the pain

# Of Valentines that never came

# And those whose names were never called

# When choosing sides for basketball

# It was long ago and far away

# The world was younger than today

# And dreams were all they gave for free

# To ugly duckling girls like me

# We all play the game and when we dare

# To cheat ourselves at solitaire

# Inventing lovers on the phone

# Repenting other lives unknown

# They call and say come dance with me

# And murmur vague obscenities

# At ugly girls like me, at seventeen. #

APPLAUSE

GUITAR BEING TUNED

-This is always the embarrassing part.

-Oh, I don't know...

Well, not for you. Just for me.

-What, hearing Ryan tune?

-Yeah, absolutely.

It's embarrassing for you?

What do you mean tune? This is my song.

LAUGHTER

Fair play. It's just too modern for us.

And me.

OK.

# Rose lived on the south side of town

# Until her landlord showed up with two 100 bills

# A notice of eviction in the other hand

# Now she don't live there no more

# And everyone thinks he drowned

# Well, I pulled into Mecklenburg on them trains

# Into a station that was flooded when they opened up the dams

# And broke their connections to the railway lines

# So they could blast into the quarry

# And for every load of granite

# We got a ton of worry

# One night at the diner over eggs

# Over easy, she showed me

# The length of her legs

# But that gold-plated cross on her neck, it was real

# And you don't get that kind of money from pushing meal

# And I should've told him that she was the one for me

# But I lied, but I lied

# To most any drifter whose looking for work is too weird

# I met your sister and I married her in July

# But if only to be closer to you, Caroline

# Percy and I moved down the street

# Until we lost two pretty girls

# One was seven, one was three

# Alderman and Caroline owned the house right up the hill

# Where we laid those babies down

# So they could still see our house

# Suspicion got the best of old Alderman Haint

# He owned an auto parts store off the interstate

# But the Lord took him home in July

# And then Rose spilled the beans on the day that he died

# That we was in trouble

# And I should've told him

# That she was the one for me

# But I lied, but I lied

# Tied up to concrete at the bottom of the quarry

# With a tattoo on his heart that spelled out Caroline

# He was silent, but his rosary

# Drifted into the custody

# Of a sheriff that had just been deputised

# And I was down at the banquet hall

# When two guys came up

# Pretty angry and drunk

# And I'm still here at the banquet hall

# At the banquet hall

# Where the gun went off

# In the Carolina rain

# In the Carolina rain

# In the Carolina rain

# Mm, Caroline. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

That was pretty magnificent.

I was just making it up.

LAUGHTER

I like the first one you did better, but that was good.

I've heard that before.

OK, it's back to me because were in a circle.

I was going to invite you, if you want,

there's a sweet note on the chorus of this song that goes:

# Dre-e-e-e-eam. #

If you want to hit that note, that'll sound pretty cool.

# Don't dre-e-e-e... #

How long do I hold that note?

# When the wo-o-o-orld. #

-Twice?

-It's just dream and world.

-I need two words.

-Twice.

It happens every chorus. That's the way I write songs.

LAUGHTER

All right.

# There is freedom within

# There is freedom without

# Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup

# There's a battle ahead

# Many battles are lost

# But you'll never see the end of the road

# While you're travelling with me

# Hey now, hey now

-# Don't dream it's over

-Don't dre-e-eam

# Hey now, hey now

-# When the world comes in

-When the wo-o-o-rld

# They come, they come

# To build a wall between us

# We know they won't win

# Now I'm towing my car

# There's a hole in the roof

# My possessions are causing me suspicion, but there's no proof

# In the paper today

# Tales of war and of waste

# But you turn right over to the TV page

# Hey now, hey now

-# Don't dream it's over

-Don't dre-e-eam

# Hey now, hey now

-# When the world comes in

-When the wo-o-orld

# They come, they come

# To build a wall between us

# We know they won't win

# Now I'm walking again

# To the beat of a drum

# And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart

# Only shadows ahead

# Barely cloud in the roof

# Get to know the feeling of liberation and release

# Hey now, hey now

-# Don't dream it's over

-Don't dre-e-eam

# Hey now Hey now

# When the world comes in

# They come They come

# To build a wall between us

# We know they won't win

# Don't ever let them win Yeah

# Don't ever let them win No

# Hey now Hey now

# Don't dream...

# Hey now Hey now

# Don't dream...

# Hey now Hey now

# Don't dream it's over

# Hey now Hey now

# When the world comes in

# They come They come

# To build a wall between us

# Hey now Hey...

# ..Now. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

I started when I was really, really young.

I like to say that I wrote my first song at 12, I was published at 13,

I made a record at 14, I had a hit at 15 and I was a has-been at 16.

LAUGHTER

It's been pretty much all uphill since then.

My first record in the United States was a song

about a black boy dating a white girl and it dropped into the chasm

of the centre of the civil rights movement,

and it became a real lightning rod for people.

A radio station in Atlanta was burned to the ground for playing it.

There was a DJ fired for quoting from it.

A Boston Globe reporter was threatened and fired

for writing a piece about it.

APPLAUSE

# Come to my door, baby

# Your face is clean and shining black as night

# My momma went to answer, you know

# That you looked so fine

# Now I could understand the tears and the shame

# She called you boy

# Instead of your name

# When she wouldn't let you inside

# When she turned and said But, honey, he's not our kind

# She said I can't see you any more

# Baby

# I can't see you any more

# Walk me down to school, baby

# Everybody's acting deaf and blind

# Until they turn and say Why don't you just

# Stick to your own kind?

# My teachers all laugh Their smirking stares

# Are cutting deep down in our affairs

# Preachers of equality

# Think they believe it Then why won't they just let us be?

# They say I can't see you any more

# Baby

# I can't see you any more

# One of these days I'm going to stop my listening

# I'm going to raise my head up high

# One of these days I'm going to raise up my glistening

# Wings and fly

# But that day will have to wait for a while

# Baby, I'm only society's child

# When we're older things may change

# But for now this is the way they must remain

# I say I can't see you any more

# Baby

# I can't see you any more

# No, I don't want to see you any more

# Baby. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

# I went down to Houston

# And I stopped in San Antone

# I passed up the station for the bus

# I was trying to find me something

# But I wasn't sure just what

# And I ended up with pockets full of dust

# So I went on to Cleveland

# I ended up insane

# I bought a borrowed suit and learned to dance

# I was spending money like the way it likes to rain

# And I ended up with pockets full of cane

# Oh my sweet Carolina

# What compels me to go?

# Oh my sweet disposition

# May you one day carry me home...

# ..I ain't never been to Vegas

# But I've gambled up my life

# Building newsprint boats I race to sewer mains

# Was trying to find me something

# But I wasn't sure just what

# Funny how they say that some things never change

# Oh my sweet Carolina

# What compels me to go?

# Oh my sweet disposition

# May you one day carry me home...

# ..Up here in the city

# It feels like things are closing in

# The sunset's just my light bulb burning out

# I miss Kentucky and I miss my family

# All the sweetest winds blow across the south

# Oh my sweet Carolina

# What compels me to go?

# Oh my sweet disposition

# May you one day carry me home

# May you one day carry me home. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thanks.

I've always been a little envious of you guys in America that

can write songs about such romantic places like Carolina

and Kentucky and all these great places.

They all sound great in songs, don't they?

-Yeah, that's why we leave them.

-LAUGHTER

You have to leave when you feel the heartache,

-then you can write about them.

-It's true.

Well, you have to leave before the people that lived down the street,

that on the really fast pick-up truck, before they shoot you.

LAUGHTER

Leaving places is always a good thing.

I've actually managed to work my hometown into one song that I wrote.

-My hometown is Te Awamutu.

-Te Awamutu.

See Janis has got it down, she's a New Zealand aficionado.

-I studied.

-And she can say "fush."

-"Fush."

It sounds like a Norwegian black metal band.

LAUGHTER

The name is really cool. Can you put it on a T-shirt?

We all love Norwegian black metal bands.

Te Awamutu means the meeting of the rivers,

although there are really only two tiny little streams.

That's what I've been led to believe anyway, as is the case,

possibly, in Australia, it could actually mean pile of maggots.

Because when the first settlers arrived,

the locals were pretty pissed off about having their land stolen

and they said, "What shall we call this place?"

"What's your name for it?" In Australia, at least they made up a few pretty doozy names.

White Man's Shit was one of them, I think,

was well documented, one of them.

I don't know if that happened as much in New Zealand.

Pile Of Maggots could be the name of the first album.

-Who's first album?

-By that band, that black metal band.

We're developing a career before we've written any songs for them.

We should be writing this stuff down for later.

You could be writing their album right now, Ryan.

Anyway, this is a song, it's a new song,

a newish song and I'm playing music, at the moment, with my wife.

We developed a late calling over a glass of wine,

after our kids left home.

It's actually really about figuring out how to let your kids go and keep

an eye on them at the same time, and just keep a low profile, you know,

watching out.

# The right way to breathe

# Amongst the leaves

# Always to move

# And lighting the armour of youth

# Cos youth are people too...

# They roar like lions

# Child-like underneath

# There lies the need

# The right way to be

# Behind the scene

# Daily to feed

# And water

# The flower of youth

# Cos youth are people too

# You dance around it

# The golden child

# You try to hold it

# But it slips right out of your arms

# And a child of many

# But I won't be led

# And we end up making a deal

# And staying away

# Just awake...

# Oh-oh-oh

# Ohhhhh oh-oh-oh-oh

# Ohhhhh oh-oh-oh

# Ohhhhh

# You dance around it

# The golden child

# You try to hold it

# But it slips right out of your arms

# And it tried to mend me

# But I won't be led

# And we end up making a deal to stay awake

# Just awake. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

My mother loved jazz and she grew up in the Bronx, in a walk-up tenement,

and on Friday nights she and my uncle,

they would creep down the fire escape when my grandmother thought they were sleeping.

And they would take the elevated train to Harlem

and they'd dance all night to Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and all the greats.

So she loved it when I became known to the jazz ladies

and I could bring her backstage

and she would meet Ella and Nina and Sarah.

# Bright lights and promises

# Pocketful of dreams

# That's what they pay me to be

# Gold lame and diamonds

# I am a hometown queen

# Honey, would you sing it just for me?

# When I was good

# Then I was bad

# I never thought I'd end up this way

# With no dreams to hide me

# Bright lights to guide me

# How long does it take to make the grade?

# Everywhere I hear

# Ringing in my ear

# Drummer, let the music play

# Gimme small-town blues

# Make it loud and make it do

# Listen to my music sway

APPLAUSE

# Bright lights and promises

# That's all it's for

# You leave and enter by the service door

# I am gold lame and diamonds

# Even if my gold is worn

# Honey, who could ask for

# More? #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.

# Guess I'll show my hand

# Either way I'm losing

# Used to have the goods

# Back when I couldn't use 'em

# Standing by the ocean

# Like I'm frozen here in time

# So don't let go Don't change your mind

# If the stars fall into the oceanside

# Someone pull the ribbons from my eyes

# Free my soul

# Let it roll away

# On an invisible riverside

# I didn't travel far

# But my feet were moving

# Couldn't read the signs

# They were too confusing

# Driving to the ocean

# On Sunset Boulevard

# So don't let go

# Don't change your mind

# If the stars fall into the ocean side

# Someone pull the ribbons from my eyes

# Free my soul

# Let it roll away

# On an invisible riverside

# Let it roll away

# Let it roll away

# Let it roll away

# Let it roll

# I wanna lay my head

# For ever on your shoulder

# Stay with me, my love

# Now and when we're older

# We'll take it to the ocean

# We got nothing now but time

# So don't let go

# Don't change your mind

# If the stars fall into the ocean side

# Someone pull the ribbons from my eyes

# Free my soul

# Let it roll away

# On an invisible riverside. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

We were talking, before we came up here,

about the way we write songs, and Ryan was talking about how...

Cos we're all secretly envious of the fact

that Ryan can write lots of songs. Let's be honest.

I'm 98 years old - I just took a lot of vitamins.

And I've been working on the songs for so fucking long...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

No, but it's interesting.

I come upstairs some days and if I haven't been able to write,

I've got the blank page in front of me, I say, "There's not a musical bone in my body."

What you just said is a whole total song. What did you say? Like...

# I go up the stairs

# There ain't a musical bone in my body

# But who cares?

# With not a musical bone in my body... #

It has got a good ring to it.

# There's not a musical bone in my body. #

Oh, how about this?

# Check out the lights behind us

# It's the same ones

# From Close Encounters Of The Third fucking Kind... #

APPLAUSE

# The Third fucking Kind

# Yeah. #

Yeah, it's no...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That's what we do for a living!

And that wasn't gratuitous use of the F-word, either, was it?

No, it was necessary.

That was just to ensure that it wouldn't go on the telecast.

I feel like the centre of an Oreo.

LAUGHTER

You look much better than that.

That also sounds like a song - I'm really sorry.

-Well, hey, don't stop now.

-That sounds like a White Lion song.

Like...

# I feel like the centre of an Oreo

# All smooth on the inside

# You're the white stuff in the middle of the Oreo... #

Y'all ain't right!

# That makes us black, I don't know how you feel about that. #

All right.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

We digress rather largely, and I've got to change guitars now, so...

Sorry about that. My professionalism is left somewhat, er, compromised.

# I feel like the centre of an Oreo

# Of an Oreo

# White in the centre

# Black all around

# Feel like the centre of an Oreo

# If you chew on me

# And you really bear down

# Spinning through the universe

# With one arm battling a game

# Of Intergalactic Ninjas

# And with the other arm

# I'm battling robotic cheeseburgers that know my name. #

I don't think this is what they were expecting.

It's like a rock opera now.

-Are you ready?

-Yeah, I'm...

-I mean, we're just waiting.

-I'm ready.

This is a song called She Will Have Her Way.

# I might be old but I'm someone new

# She said

# I'm so sore that I could cry

# Always

# In the night lay your tired arms

# She will have her way

# Somehow I will still believe her

# She's the life I've been frightened of

# Seems like

# Deathly silence and especially the dark

# Feels like

# I am heavy and my spirit has died

# She will have her way

# Somehow I will still believe her

# She will have her way

# One day I will come back

# Yeah, yeah

# Oh, oh, oh

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo

# Of all the...

# Hey

# There's still no end in sight

# Though I travel far and wide

# A dying man is doing time

# Thinker, solider terrified

# She will have her way

# Somehow I will still

# Believe her

# She will have her way

# One day I will

# Come

# Back

# Ye, ye, yeah

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo

# Oh, aah

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo

# Do, do, doo-ooh

# Oh, aah

# Ye-a-a-h

# She will have her way

# She will have her way

# She will have her way

# She will have her way

# She will have her way

# She will have her way. #

AUDIENCE CHEERS

HE MOUTHS

AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUDS

# I'm leaving by night

# I'm leaving alone

# Leavin' you lie

# When you waken I'll be gone

# I would not beg for me

# As I could not beg for you

# Though I'd like to be the one to see you through

# Every step you have taken

# Disappears with the tide

# You're torn up and shaken

# With changing your mind

# You haven't got the grace to say

# You'll finally decide

# And you haven't got the strength

# To stay to fight

# Those people who surround you only

# Want to see you weak enough to crawl

# They'll lie for you they decide for you

# And buy up all your rights

# And all your wrongs

# And they'll try and stop your singing

# In the middle of your song

# They do not want you free

# They will not make you strong

# But only

# Drag you down in the hole they're coming from

# They say you are foolish

# For wanting the sun

# They call you selfish

# For learning to run

# They'll tell you that the darkness

# Is a blessing in disguise

# You may never have to notice

# If you're sighted or you're blind

# They'll do their best to keep you

# From the light

# You're more than beginning

# You're learning to fly

# Feels like you're falling

# But it passes in time

# And I hate to see a friend go down in flames

# Without a song

# So I'm waiting by the doorway

# I will not linger long

# I will leave you my night

# I'm leaving alone

# And I'm leaving you lie

# When you waken I'll be gone

# I would not beg for me

# I could not beg for you

# But I'd like to be the one to see you

# Through. #

AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUDS

Thank you.

Thank you.

(Thanks.)

Thank you very much.

Another song about

close encounters of the third kind...

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

# When they call your name

# Will you walk right up

# With a smile on your face

# Will you cower in fear

# In your favourite sweater

# With an old love letter

# You know you could

# I wish you would

# Come pick me up

# Take me out

# Fuck me up

# Steal my records

# Screw all my friends

# They're all full of shit

# With a smile on your face

# And then do it again

# I wish you were

# So when you're walking downtown

# Do you wish I was there

# Do you wish it was me?

# With the windows clear

# And the mannequins eyes

# Do they all look like mine?

# You know you could

# I wish you would

# Come pick me up

# Take me out

# Fuck me up

# Steal my records

# Screw all my friends

# Behind my back

# The smile on your face

# And then do it again

# I wish you were

# I wish you'd make up my bed

# So I could make up my mind

# Try it for sleeping instead

# Maybe you'd rest sometime

# Well, I wish I could

# I wish I could

# I wish I could. #

AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUDS

Thank you very much. We salute you, we hope the show makes it to air.

JANIS IAN LAUGHS And...

This is a song that we have actually slightly rehearsed.

Not that that means a hell of a lot.

AUDIENCE CHEERS AND CLAPS IN TIME

Oh, yeah. You've got rhythm. Listen to it.

# Walking round the room

# Singing Stormy Weather

# At 57 Mount Pleasant Street

# Well, it's the same room

# But everything's different

# You can fight the sleep

# But not the dream... #

That's it.

# Things ain't cooking

# In my kitchen

# Strange affliction

# Wash over me

# Julius Caesar

# And the Roman Empire

# Couldn't conquer

# The blue sky... #

All right.

# There's a small boat made of china

# It's going nowhere on the mantelpiece

# Well, do I lie like a lounge-room lizard

# Or do I sing like a bird released

# Everywhere you go

# You always take the weather with you

# Everywhere you go

# You always take the weather

# Everywhere you go

# You always take the weather with you

# Everywhere you go

# Always take the weather

# The weather with you

# Everywhere you go

# You always take the weather with you

# Everywhere you go

# You always take the weather

# Everywhere you go

# You always take the weather with you

# Everywhere you go

# Always take the weather

# Take the weather

# The weather with you. #

Thank you so much!

AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUDS

-Neil Finn.

-Ryan Adams.

-Janis Ian.

-JANIS:

-Thank you so much.

AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUDS

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]