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Streets are wide
and the lawns are mown
The trees are standing tall
Funny though for all this space
Things seem somehow small
Getting lame suburban smiles
From neighbours I recall
But I can see from their vacant looks
That they don’t know me at all
It must be twenty years or more
Since I was hanging round their doors
Not even I can place the boy
Who used to call this home
Yeah I used to call this home
Chinese is the only kind
Of take-out that you’ll sight
And the guy works the counter there
Is the only one who isn’t white
Kids are bored and restless here
Except on a Friday night
When they go down the RSL
Get pissed and maybe pick a fight
I know I look with a cruel old eye
And perhaps I’m being unfair
They’ve got me pegged—a yuppie poof
As they flick their mullet hair
I really don’t care
Streets are wide
and the lawns are mown
The trees are standing tall
Funny though for all this space
Things seem somehow small
Getting lame suburban smiles
From neighbours I recall
But I can see from their vacant looks
That they don’t know me at all
It must be twenty years or more
Since I was hanging round their doors
Not even I can place the boy
Who used to call this home
Yeah I used to call this home
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Music and lyrics: Toby Roberts. Instrumentation: The Telltales. Recording: Steve Shipley, Lemon Studios, 2004. Produced by The Telltales and Steve Shipley. Mastering: William Bowden. All recordings ©2004 Will Belford, Peter Gifford, Mark Roberts, Toby Roberts (The Telltales). All compositions (lyrics & music) ©2000-2004 Toby Roberts. Painting: from Pieter Brueghel’s Haymaking and Tower of Babel, reproduced courtesy of the State Reference Library, State Library of New South Wales.