ASSASSIN
Around 1988 after I’d left Perth for Sydney I hooked up with keyboard player Noel Davies who I had recruited for my large revue The Sensational Sixties and Seventies. Noel had gone on to play with (Perth band) Perfect Strangers and when that band had split had left for Sydney.
Noel on keyboard in Bunbury for the Sensatiional 60sNoel was living in a flat in North Bondi and there we recorded a bunch of songs for the 3XY program Kick To Kick. I’d got a call from my mate Trevor Marmalade to see if I could supply some funny and irreverant sporting songs. No doubt another good pal, Greg Champion, had inspired this idea because he was really the first to come up with the idea of putting footy lyrics to well-known songs. Noel is a terrifically talented keyboard player. I would give him a song to program and it would be ready and waiting when I managed to haul my arse to Bondi from Neutral Bay. I’d do a vocal track live to the backing and Noel would quickly mix it up, put it onto a cassette and we’d bung it in the post for Melbourne. Hectic but fun.
Noel Davies (right) with Johnny Leopard, Kardomah Cafe circa 1990.Around the same time Mark Kennedy the ABC radio producer for Roy and HG’s The Sporting Life Saturday arvo program, had offered to record me in downtime at the JJ studio. A chord progression jumped into my head with the hookline `When you love your own assassin.’ I was drawn to the idea of a song that characterised a doomed relationship where the very person who would destroy you is the one you can’t keep away from. The song was ominous in tone. Like a French noire gangster film we know exactly how this must end. Hence ‘Assassin’.
Noel came up with a really great keyboard intro and we part recorded it along with a few other songs (Beer/Was It Any Better Ten/Right Lawyer) before something went wrong at the ABC and the plug was effectively pulled.
When I teamed up with Martin Cilia to record the album ‘Surplus and Dearth‘, one of the tracks I was really keen on was `Assassin’. However, we didn’t have the copy of the early demo and so we kind of reconstructed it. The song goes down a storm live. It’s a real favourite of mine.
It follows and it haunts you
The thought the creeps and taunts
You dunno where to hide
All you know is that you ache inside
The days seem awful long
The nights go on and on
The fan is always broken
The leaking fridge is always open
When you love your own assassin
Late at night you wake up sweating
It’s a very lethal passion
When you love your own assassin
You try to run but your heart calls out
You try to cling to any shadow of a doubt
You won’t admit you’re beaten
You try to mess with reason
You think you’ll dodge the bullet
You think you’ll spot the poison pellet
And if it’s gas you think you’ll smell it
When you love your own assassin
Late at night you wake up sweating
It’s a very lethal passion
When you love your own assassin
You try to run but your heart calls out
You try to cling to any shadow of a doubt
Break 8 bars
You try to run but your heart calls out
You try to cling to any shadow of a doubt
When you love your own assassin
Late at night you wake up sweating
It’s a very lethal passion
When you love your own assassin
