Versions

Version	Length	Source	Availability
Studio	4:09	Mark Seymour Undertow album.	Moderately common. Available new in CD and digital form.
Live [1]	4:28	Mark Seymour Roll Back The Stone album.	Moderately common. Available new in CD and digital form.
Live [2]	4:52	2015 08 15 Old Museum, Fortitude Valley, Australia.	The Vault digital download at True Believers for 29 November 2015.

 Recommended Version.

Commentary

From Mark’s track by track guide to Undertow:

My mother Paula, in the kitchen at Corryong. My earliest memory of her then and now, in the nursing home in Kew.. intoning Hail Marys, waiting in the light

Lyrics

Classrooms and kitchens
Small country houses
Blue Hills on the radio
She stoked the fire
She weaved and she sewed
The river broke and it flooded down the road

Cattle in the garden
Snakes in the grass
Fog in the morning
Rising at last
Oh the dust never settled
But the willows weep and the windows rattle

She sits by the window
In a blue rubber chair
They’ve wiped her lips
They’ve tied back her hair

Come on lay down, lay down
Lay down your long goodbye
Come on lay down, lay down
Lay down your long goodbye

Here comes the thunder
Here come the rain
Danny boy’s calling her
She’s singing again
Oh her grey eyes keep glowing
Through the tears and the pain
Oh her petty coat’s showing

Well her hands start shaking
When the old man comes around
The rain outside is soaking the ground

Come on lay down, lay down
lay down your long goodbye
She’s leaving, she’s leaving
It’s too late to wonder why

She’s searching for traces
Blinks in the light
It’s in their faces in the dead of the night
When they crawled into her bed
She remembers what her children once said
Singing Hail Mary all over again
She’s counting angels from zero to ten

Come on lay down, lay down
Lay down your long goodbye
She’s leaving; she’s leaving
It’s too late to wonder why
Come on lay down, lay down
Lay down your long goodbye

Goodbye