Published in Overland Issue 207 Winter 2012 · Uncategorized Starvation Box Blues Joe Dolce When I got myself this Starvation Box my daddy told me son you’re bound to lose you ain’t never gonna make no money playing that guitar only give you the Starvation Box blues. Now I’ve stood in that Welfare line I’ve passed the hat and I’ve played for food I hope my luck changes soon I’m sick of these Starvation Box blues. Sometimes I want to smash this Starvation Box build a fire just to warm my feet or bust it into little pieces and use the toothpicks to pick my teeth. My music has got me through some hard times music has made me jump and shout this Starvation Box has been my best friend for so long Lord I just can’t turn it out. Sometimes I wish I had me a regular job and was making steady money just like you instead of living with so much damn uncertainty and all these Starvation Box blues. Joe Dolce Joe Dolce moved to Australia in 1979, becoming a citizen in 2004. He is known internationally for the most successful Australian song in history, ‘Shaddap You Face’, which reached number one on the pop charts in fifteen countries. He has achieved award-winning recognition as a songwriter, serious composer and poet. More by Joe Dolce › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 7 February 20257 February 2025 · Friday Fiction The gap between the trees Jenny Sinclair At first it was because I was angry. It might have looked like I was running away but I wasn’t. I was punching the earth with my feet. The faster I went — the harder my soles hit the ground — the better it felt. Because punching people is, you know, illegal. And wrong. But mostly illegal. 6 February 2025 · open letter Open Letter from Attendees of the National Anti-Racism Symposium at the Queensland University of Technology Delegates to the National Anti-Racism Symposium We urge QUT, politicians and others receiving pressure to not only resist these attacks on the intellectual freedom and academic integrity of the presenters, Carumba Institute and QUT, but, further, to condemn the racist, reactionary and divisive campaign that produced them. Anything less will be a capitulation to the most corrosively anti-intellectual forces in Australian society, which will ultimately harm not only Carumba and QUT, but all of us.
