This one hasn’t found its album yet, but it’s fun to play. Dedicated to the old Northern Stand at the MCG, which no longer exists, and especially Deck P – that’s where Dad and I used to watch the football from, when I was a little tacker.
Three-Quarter TimeIt was 4:14 on a Saturday afternoon
in the Northern Stand of the MCG in the month of June
I was on Deck P with a bucket of chips and a pie
when a beautiful woman in Carlton colours caught my eye
Well, my heart stood still as she wandered across the deck
I was captivated, as much as I hated the scarf around her neck
and she said “Bad luck – but I guess we’re just too good,”
so I stood up proudly and shouted loudly, as all barrackers should:
“Well, it’s three-quarter time, and the game goes on,
“it won’t be over ’til the final siren’s gone,
“so spare me your sympathy, your premature regret,
“‘cos it’s three-quarter time, my dear, not over yet.”
The boys went down, and I guess I got the blues –
nothing can smart like a black-and-white heart with a navy bruise –
so I left the ground alone, and walked home in bitter blame:
well the umpiring sucked,
and the fixture was fucked,
it’s a stupid game.
But all the same, her face reappears in my dreams at night
This mystical woman of power and beauty in soft blue light
And she giggles at me mischievously, pulls a beanie down over my eyes,
and she says I’ll never find her, but she doesn’t realise
that it’s three-quarter time, and the game flows on,
she’s my siren and she’s never really gone.
She’s haunting me and taunting me,
that Carlton club coquette,
but it’s three-quarter time, my dear, it’s not over yet
So spare me your sympathy, your premature regret,
‘cos it’s three-quarter time, my dear, not over yet.