Baby Jane from Pendulum by Liz Stringer

Our baby loved the east coast
She had done all her life
She said she liked that when she pointed her pretty eyes north
She had the ocean on her right
She loved to have people all around her
And see the streetlights shining in the dark
The way the city smoked of fun and danger
The waiting spark

She got a ride on a road train
He fed her speed and travelling tales
When they arrived in the western end of Sydney
She opened all her sails
We got letters every week for the first month
Told us of kindred souls, the friends she’d made
But when the summer closed in, the longer
Between letters we would wait

Baby Jane, she ain’t ever going to see the sun rise
Baby Jane, over the Southern Ocean deep
Baby Jane, not one moment with our child forgetting
Baby Jane, we wait for her to come home
To her father and me

Last time we heard from our baby
That letter screamed between the lines
A debt, a lover and an iron will breaking
Nothing said, a thousand times
So when we see the western sun setting
And hear the Currawongs fly over the plain
I watch my husband’s tears, the dry dirt they be wetting
For our pretty baby Jane

Baby Jane, she ain’t ever going to see the sun rise
Baby Jane, over the Southern Ocean deep
Baby Jane, not one moment with our child forgetting
Baby Jane, we wait for her to come home
To her father and me

• Americana
• Australia
• Folk
• Melbourne
• Roots
• singer songwriter
• Melbourne