Steel Town

For a long time I avoided writing something this earnest. This specific.

In early 2023, after a life-saving trip home for Christmas, I started thinking about how to write a song about my hometown.

Not a generic “hometown” song. A real one.

The folks back home call bullshit quick.

So I started writing down memories.

Wrecking my first car on Burton Road.

Falling into Lake Macquarie on my 18th birthday.

Riding around in my mate Ben’s old Hilux.

For a long time I avoided writing something this earnest. This specific.

As an Aussie, it’s always a fine line. We don’t get too sentimental, or too proud. We definitely don’t do cheesy.

But the older I get, the more I realise those details aren’t cheesy. They’re the stuff that built me.

I left almost 11 years ago with a one-way ticket and a dream.

But life has a way of circling you back to the start, not to stay there, but to understand it properly.

Steel Town isn’t nostalgia. It’s perspective.

Most of my mates have moved away.

The old gravel road’s been paved.

But some things never change.

Part of me will always be that kid from Newy.

We’ll play this one live for the first time this weekend. In the town that gave it its name.

That feels pretty fucking right.

Stream the song here: morganevans.lnk.to/SteelTown_single