That I happened to a town once
Is of no consequence to my story
But i burned all of my diaries
The day a town happened to me

I guess I should've called you
But payphones there were just so hungry
I was busy writing headlines
Like 'postbox eats the hand of lady'
Who fixes stamps to cutout competitions
She kisses each letter she mails
This is how i found Manilla, Manilla New South Wales

Cold beer for welcome stranger
Choose to refuse and so politely
Is to risk the danger
That they'll raise the kind of hell known only by the New South Welsh
To be heard along the Namoi banks
And out across the distant ranges

You've had so many lovers
Your brothers would be so proud of thee
But one way of another they've drifted to be beside a sea
While the information clock has tied a knot
With both it's hands and holds us by our tails
We're all bound by time to Manilla, Manilla New South Wales

Can you pick a grave for me in the ruins of cordial factories
Where flavoured flowers grow pirouetting in cul-de-sacs
Miss the sound of clickety clacks on tracks that trains won't go
And out through windows

The shop keepers gape out over the landscape
They're praying for sales
Religion makes more sense in Manilla, Manilla New South Wales

Here's to the folk behind fences
Furtively readjusting denches
A chorus of corellas
Form clouds over saturday benches
Where old men sit and lick tobacco papers
They look like a harmonica band
As the sun tiptoes down Manilla St
And slowly comes to land

I may make me a home in Manilla, Manilla New South Wales