Stranded like a runaway lost at sea
City on a rainy day down in the harbor
Watching as the gray clouds shadow the bay
Looking everywhere 'cause I had to find you
This is not the way that I remember it here
Anyone will tell you it's a prisoner island
Hidden in the summer for a million years
Great Southern Land
Burned you black
So you look into the land, it will tell you a story
Story about a journey ended long ago
Listen to the motion of the wind in the mountains
Maybe you can hear them talking like I do
They're gonna betray you, they're gonna forget you
Are you gonna let them take you over that way?
Great Southern Land
Great Southern Land
You walk alone
Like a primitive man
And they make it work
With sticks and bones
See their hungry eyes
It's a hungry home
I hear the sound
Of the strangers' voices
I see their hungry eyes
Their hungry eyes
Great Southern Land
Great Southern Land
They burned you black
Black against the ground
Standing at the limit of an endless ocean
Stranded like a runaway lost at sea
City on a rainy day down in the harbor
Watching as the gray clouds shadow the bay
Looking everywhere, I had to find you
This is not the way that I remember it here
Anyone will tell you it's a prisoner island
Hidden in the summer for a million years
Great Southern Land
In the sleeping sun
You walk alone
With the ghost of time
Well, they burned you black
Black against the ground
And they make it work
With rocks and sand
I hear the sound
Of the strangers' voices
I see their hungry eyes
Their hungry eyes
Great Southern Land
Great Southern Land
You walk alone
Like a primitive man
You walk alone
With the ghost of time
And they burned you black
Yeah, they burned you black
Great Southern Land
Great Southern Land
Great Southern Land
Great Southern Land
Icehouse are an Australian rock band, formed in Sydney in 1977 as Flowers.
Initially known in their homeland for their pub rock style, the band later achieved mainstream success playing new wave and synth-pop music and attained Top 10 singles chart success locally and in both Europe and the U.S. The mainstay of both Flowers and Icehouse has been Iva Davies (singer-songwriter, record producer, guitar, bass, keyboards, oboe) supplying additional musicians as required. The name "Icehouse", adopted in 1981, comes from an old, cold flat Davies lived in and the strange building across the road populated by itinerant people.
Davies and Icehouse extended the use of synthesisers particularly the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 ("Love in Motion", 1981), Linn drum machine ("Hey Little Girl", 1982) and Fairlight CMI (Razorback trailer, 1983) in Australian popular music. Their best known singles on the Australian charts include "Great Southern Land", "Hey Little Girl", "Crazy", "Electric Blue" and "My Obsession"; with Top Three albums being Icehouse (1980, as Flowers), Primitive Man (1982) and Man of Colours (1987).
Icehouse was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame on 16 August 2006.
ARIA described Icehouse as "one of the most successful Australian bands of the eighties and nineties... With an uncompromising approach to music production they created songs that ranged from pure pop escapism to edgy, lavish synthesised pieces..." Icehouse has produced eight top-ten albums and twenty top-forty singles in Australia, multiple top-ten hits in Europe and North America and album sales of over 28-times platinum in Australasia alone.
