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Middle of the Hill Lyrics
When I was a kid I grew up in a house on a hill
Not the top, not the bottom, but the middle
And i still remember where I cracked my head
In the vacant lot, there's a row of tiny houses there now
And we used to light fires in the gutters
And I could cool my head on the concrete steps
But the girl down the street hit my sister on the head
With a stick and we hid behind my father
As he knocked on the parents' door
To tell the them what she did
But the parents were drunk so they really didn't give a shit
And the girl down the street said a dog couldn't bark
'Cause a man with an axe cut its voicebox out
But my older sister told me that it prob'ly wasn't true
And I believe what she said 'cause she took me by the hand
One time when a coupla men drove down the hill in a white van
Said there was a phone box filled with money 'round the corner
And I woulda gone along but she took me by the hand
To the house in the middle of the hill
In the middle of the hill, in the middle of the hill
And my mother knew the words to a lot of different songs
And we'd always sing the harmonies, yeah we'd sing along
She had cold, cold hands when the fever hit
And then the noises that the trains made sounded like people in my head
And the stories that the ceiling told
Through the pictures and the grains in the pine-wood boards
And let me stay outside 'til the sky went red
And I could cool my head on the concrete steps
And you could never really see the top from the bottom
But I don't pay enough attention to the good things when I got 'em
And you could never really see the top from the bottom
I don't pay enough attention to the good things when I got 'em (x 4)
Not the top, not the bottom, but the middle
And i still remember where I cracked my head
In the vacant lot, there's a row of tiny houses there now
And we used to light fires in the gutters
And I could cool my head on the concrete steps
But the girl down the street hit my sister on the head
With a stick and we hid behind my father
As he knocked on the parents' door
To tell the them what she did
But the parents were drunk so they really didn't give a shit
'Cause a man with an axe cut its voicebox out
But my older sister told me that it prob'ly wasn't true
And I believe what she said 'cause she took me by the hand
One time when a coupla men drove down the hill in a white van
Said there was a phone box filled with money 'round the corner
And I woulda gone along but she took me by the hand
To the house in the middle of the hill
In the middle of the hill, in the middle of the hill
And we'd always sing the harmonies, yeah we'd sing along
She had cold, cold hands when the fever hit
And then the noises that the trains made sounded like people in my head
And the stories that the ceiling told
Through the pictures and the grains in the pine-wood boards
And let me stay outside 'til the sky went red
And I could cool my head on the concrete steps
And you could never really see the top from the bottom
But I don't pay enough attention to the good things when I got 'em
And you could never really see the top from the bottom
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I heard Josh Pyke giving an interview on Triple j ages ago and he said that it was autobiographical. He also thought that the song wouldn't be a hit because it doesn't have a chorus. Obviously he was wrong because it got number 19 in the last Triple J hottest 100 :)
I absolutely adore this song. I think it's about a guy recalling his childhood, more specifically his family and how they were always there for him.
Yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory... Go stream of consciousness, go! I guess memory can be like that. You start off remembering your house and suddenly all these things come flooding back. The way he sings its like he's in so much of a hurry to get it all out because the next memory is coming along. I especially like the trains that sounded like people in his head.
I think the final repetition is "I don't pay enough attention to the good things when I got 'em", really symbolic of his reminiscing. A gorgeous song.
I think the line 'And you can never really see the top from the bottom' is symbolic of the journey from childhood to adulthood, and how when you're younger you can't see what it all means and how it's going to change you and make you who you will be.
It seems definitely to be a child-like view of his childhood, but then moves on to more complex ideas like - 'you can never really see the top from the bottom'. So possibly there is an underlying transition shown through the lyrics.
I think if this is infact a true biography that it emphasises his creative nature... 'the noises that the trains made sounded like people in my head' and 'the stories that the ceiling told Through the pictures and the grains in the pine-wood boards'
There's a very clever use of lyrics, rather than words that just fit the music, these lryics really tell a story, the story of his childhood.
AMAZING.
I love this song, it makes me so happy coz when I listen to it, i can feel how he felt about his childhood. It also makes me remember what it was like when I was younger, and all the good times I had.
yer i really love this song. i think it talks about how his childhood wasn't sheltered and wasn't perfectly rule abiding and he wasn't in the "perfect" kind of family that all ate dinner sitting in the same place at the table every night and sang christmas charols together every christmas eve or went to town together on saturdays. his family wasn't "normal" or "typical" but they were well off and they loved eachother. and he had a free childhood with the neighbourhood children and his sister. it talks about "lighting fires in the gutters" and "couple of men in a white van" and the girl down the street had alchoholic parents. it doesnt sount safe and sheltered and loving but it was free and it was his childhood and they are hid memories and he loves them cos they're part of what makes him him.
i love this song.
Yep. 100% factual lyrics. He's just recalling things from his childhood and turned them into a song. A good one at that.