Elly - Bernard Fanning

Elly wrapped her nineteen years

In a coat from '41

Had the looks that’d make a grown man sigh

From the Diamantina River country

She crossed the dry mid west

From her childhood schemes and sheltered dreams

She broke the ties

The commercial man made blunt demands

As they travelled south by east

Elly turned into a woman over night

He set her down in the heart of town

The millionaires retreat

She gazed up at the tall glass and concrete walls

At Main St. Surfers Paradise

If the decks been marked before the deal

You learn to compromise

Or you get to know the cool hand with the dice

You learn to live off losers, for they make the mistakes twice

You’re living in high society but you’re street wise

Just to survive, just to survive

With those centrefold looks

And bay-blue eyes

Man she stacked them in

All the senators and doctors called her Madam

With her fifteen girls she built a world

A pleasured paradise

On what a man of God would call the wages of sin

If the decks been marked before the deal

You learn to compromise

Or you get to know the cool hand with the dice

You learn to live off losers, for they make the mistakes twice

You’re living in high society but you’re street wise

Just to survive, just to survive

A wealthy woman

Drinks with diamond rings

Twenty stories high

Gazes out as the sun lifts from the sea

To make it to the top

Elly sacrificed the lot

And found that seven figure sum was way too high a fee

If the decks been marked before the deal

You learn to compromise

Or you get to know the cool hand with the dice

You learn to live off losers, for they make the mistakes twice

You’re living in high society but you’re street wise

Just to survive, just to survive