Versions

Version	Length	Source	Availability
Studio	3:14	Mark Seymour Undertow album.	Moderately common. Available new in CD and digital form.
Live	3:12	Mark Seymour Live At The Basement album and video.	Moderately rare. Not available new.

 Recommended Version.

Commentary

Mark has stated that this is a song about gold lust and also that it was written about Crown Casino in Melbourne.

From Mark’s track by track guide to Undertow:

Crown Casino. The face of Australia. The multitude clamoring to win, to be seen, to be showered with the flush of success. Every kind of Australian is there. Multi-culturalism running wild. Eating, drinking, gambling. Children crying in the carpark at midnight. Blue bloods dripping with wealth in the ballroom. The sound of faux bird song broadcast from speakers hidden in the trees along the boulevarde outside. And faux crowds laughing and cheering from speakers outside the sports bar at three in the morning.. when there’s no one around the Indian women come out to sweep the mall.

Lyrics

UNDERTOW VERSION

Take a slow boat to China
The broken the meek and the poor
Opportunity’s knocking tonight
There’s mud on the casino floor

Scandal in the car park at midnight
The chairman, the nurse and the priest
All the pretty things with their heels and their rings
They’re trying to cash in on the feast

Here comes your ticket to freedom
Tell me where does the weekend go?
Yeah there’s room for the wounded
In the light over Eldorado, Eldorado!

Slip through the eye of a needle
They’re howling at the plate glass door
Boats are coming, tide keeps on a running
They keep on coming back for more

A string of snow white horses
The princess in her evening gown
“Climb aboard my love,” the coachman cries.
“There’s only one destination in town”

Here comes your ticket to freedom
Tell me where does the weekend go?
Watching refugees weep
In the light over Eldorado, Eldorado!

Oh here comes your ticket to freedom
Tell me where did the weekend go?
Yeah there’s room for the wounded
In the light over Eldorado, Eldorado!

Eldorado
Eldorado
Eldorado
Eldorado
Eldorado

LIVE AT THE BASEMENT VERSION

Take this old boat to China
Cruising in your four wheel drive
You’re so together
Shame about the weather
Bet you’re glad to be alive

While you’re turning windows right up
Blow the competition away
You say you did it rough
Never got enough
You’re sleeping on the job all day

You got your ticket to freedom
There’s so many places to go
So many people to see
In the light over El Dorado
El Dorado

Gold fever is catching
Let me stag along for the ride
All the pretty things
That true love brings
Makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside

Oh lovely snow white horses
You’re star spangled evening gown
Climb aboard my love
The coachman cried
There’s only one destination in town

You got your ticket to freedom
There’s so many places to go
So many people to see
In the light over El Dorado
El Dorado

You got your ticket to freedom
There’s so many places to go
So many people to see
In the light over El Dorado
El Dorado
El Dorado
El Dorado