Never Be For Me

from Abolition by Beautiful Losers

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about

I wrote this song some years back while reflecting on the experiences reported by several women in the music scene in which they felt unsafe at gigs (due to having been harassed and groped on occasion in live music venues) and even more unsafe after leaving venues at night. This is not new; it has been happening for decades. It should never happen. I started writing a song about how that would never be for me: (1) doing that to women, and (2) having the constant fear of having that done to me. I was free of something that was so constant a burden to most women I knew that it was mundane and unremarkable. The song seemed trite, and it was certainly only half-finished. Then a few years later the whole "Me Too" thing was taking off, and local songwriter Stella Donnelly shook us all with her song "Boys will be Boys". The conversation took off, and I felt that classic cis male thing of wanting to have my say, but feeling like I wasn't actually needed (other than the obvious responsibility to behave myself and call out any men who didn't, plus step in to stop abuse from starting or escalating). "Not for Me" took on a few more layers of meaning - with the uncomfortable realisation that it isn't about me, even though it demands something of me. I finished the song. You will notice that it is the female voices singing the lines in the chorus "tired of the careful life; eyes cast down" in a weary and affronted manner, and both men and women then declare "we will never tolerate this town" with anger and strength rather than an almost defeated weariness. Again, "town" refers to a circumstance or state of mind, not necessarily to a geographical place. This was the most difficult song to record, and to mix. I am still not convinced that I have it right yet.

lyrics

It will never be for me.
Dark words and the complicity.
All the shame. All the needless pain.
Sliding under the mud and the wilful gain.

Tired of the careful life, eyes cast down
We will never tolerate this town.

Some have looked the other way
They were safe inside their cave.
All the shame. All the needless pain.
And the rush to explain it all away.

Tired of the careful life, eyes cast down
We will never tolerate this town.

It will never be for me.

credits

from Abolition, released March 8, 2021

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Greg Dear Perth, Australia

Greg Dear's debut solo album in 1981 featured members of the Triffids and other Perth bands. Across the 80s and 90s he released singles and albums both solo and with his bands (Holy Rollers, Beautiful Losers, and Butterfly Collection), and produced records by other Perth bands. For the Beautiful Losers' recent albums (2014 on), visit: beautifullosers.bandcamp.com ... more

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