Song Break

"New Slang" - The Shins
http://youtube.com/watch?v=M11Kr1-q-pA


Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.
Only, i don't know how they got out, dear.
Turn me back into the pet that i was when we met.
I was happier then with no mind-set.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, I'd 'a jumped from my tree
And I'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
Hope it's right when you die, old and bony.
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall,
Never should have called
But my head's to the wall and I'm lonely.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, I'd 'a jumped from my tree
And I'd a danced like the kind of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,
And bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.

I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well I'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.




"Sleeping Lessons"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UoNtIkRm1HE


Go without,
'Til the need seeps in,
You're low anymore,
Collect your novel petals for the stem,

And glow,
Glow,
Melt and flow,
Eviscerate your fragile frame,
And spill it out in the ragged floor,
A thousand different versions of yourself,

And if the old guard still offend,
They got nothing left on which you depend,
So enlist every ounce,
Of your bright blood,
And off with their heads,

Jump from a book,
You're not obliged to swallow anything you despise,
See, those unrepenting buzzards want your life,
And they got no right,
As sure as you have eyes,
They got no right,

Just put yourself in my new shoes,
And see that I do what I do,
Because the old guard still offend,
We got nothing left on which we depend,
So we waste every ounce,
Of your bright blood,
And off with their heads,

Jump from a book,
And you're not obliged,
To swallow anything that you despise

willing to fight


the windows of my soul
are made of one way glass
don't bother looking into my eyes
if there's something you want to know,
just ask
i got a dead bolt stroll
where i'm going is clear
i won't wait for you to wonder
i'll just tell you why i'm here

'cause i know the biggest crime
is just to throw up your hands
say
this has nothing to do with me
i just want to live as comfortably as i can
you got to look outside your eyes
you got to think outside your brain
you got to walk outside you life
to where the neighborhood changes

tell me who is your boogieman
that's who i will be
you don't have to like me for who i am
but we'll see what you're made of
by what you make of me
i think that it's absurd
that you think i
am the derelict daughter
i fight fire with words
words are hotter than flames
words are wetter than water

i got friends all over this country
i got friends in other countries too
i got friends i haven't met yet
i got friends i never knew
i got lovers whose eyes
i've only seen at a glance
i got strangers for great grandchildren
i got strangers for ancestors

i was a long time coming
i'll be a long time gone
you've got your whole life to do something
and that's not very long
so why don't you give me a call
when you're willing to fight
for what you think is real
for what you think is right

A Spade - Ani Difranco


i will not lie downon the wrongful groundwork laidwhile
it's still a radical soundjust to call a spade a spade
dear friends, women and men
please check my math once more
in the totality of all war's history
there's but one common denominator
the answer is in the intention
that lies behind the question
put that on your standardized multiple choice
i mean, how's this supposed to look to me?
but half of divinity
out there trying to make harmony
with only one voice

you know, i've got experience
looking right past the obvious
and i know what is so big and so close
is always the hardest stuff
for us to reckon with
the hardest stuff to know
dear friends, especially the women
tell me are you up to the task
of turning the wheel of human history
at long last

the answer is in the intention
that lies behind the question
put that on your standardized multiple choice
i mean, how's this supposed to look to me?
but half of divinity
out there trying to make harmony
with only one voice

i will not lie down
on the wrongful groundwork laid
while it's still a radical sound
just to call a spade a spade
dear friends, women and men
what better time to face
that we've been looking for
the answer to war
in the wrong place

Parameters - Ani Difranco(whom I have the honor of seeing perform tomorrow night!)

thirty-three years go by
and not once do you come home
to find a man sitting in your bedroom
that is
a man you don't know
who came a long way to deliver one very specific message:
lock your back door, you idiot
however invincible you imagine yourself to be
you are wrong

thirty-three years go by
and you loosen the momentum of teenage nightmares
your breasts hang like a woman's
and you don't jump at shadows anymore
instead you may simply pause to admire
those that move with the grace of trees
dancing past streetlights
and you walk through your house without turning on lamps
sure of the angle from door to table
from table to staircase
sure of the number of steps
seven to the landing
two to turn right
then seven more
sure you will stroll serenely on the moving walkway of memory
across your bedroom
and collapse with a sigh onto your bed
shoes falling
thunk thunk
onto the floor
and there will be no strange man
suddenly all that time sitting there
sitting there on what must be the prize chair
in your collection of uncomfortable chairs
with a wild look in his eyes
and hands that you cannot see
holding what?
you do not know

so sure are you of the endless drumming rhythm of your isolation
that you are painfully slow to adjust
if only because
yours is not that genre of story
still and again, life cannot muster the stuff of movies
no bullets shattering glass
instead fear sits patiently
fear almost smiles when you finally see him
though you have kept him waiting for thirty-three years
and now he has let himself in
and he has brought you fistfuls of teenage nightmares
though you think you see, in your naivete
that he is empty handed
and this brings you great relief
at the time

new as you are, really, to the idea that
even after you've long since gotten used to the parameters
they can all change
while you're out one night having a drink with a friend
some big hand may be turning a big dial
switching channels on your dreams
until you find yourself lost in them
and watching your daily life with the sound off
and of course having cautiously turned down the flame under your eyes
there are more shadows around everything
your vision a dim flashlight that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse
your solitude elevating itself like the spirit of the dead
presiding over your supposed repose
not really sleep at all
just a sleeping position and a series of suspicious sounds
a clanking pipe
a creaking branch
the footfalls of a cat
all of this and maybe
the swish of the soft leather of your intruder's coat
as you walk him step by step back to the door
having talked him down off the ledge of a very bad idea
soft leather, big feet, almond eyes
the kinds of details the police officer would ask for later
with his clipboard
and his pistol
in your hallway


Grand Canyon

i love my country
by which i mean
i am indebted joyfully
to all the people throughout its history
who have fought the government to make right
where so many cunning sons and daughters
our foremothers and forefathers
came singing through slaughter
came through hell and high water
so that we could stand here
and behold breathlessly the sight
how a raging river of tears
cut a grand canyon of light

yes, i've bin so many places
flown through vast empty spaces
with stewardesses whose hands
look much older than their faces
i've tossed so many napkins
into that big hole in the sky
bin at the bottom of the atlantic
seething in a two-ply
looking up through all that water
and the fishes swimming by
and i don't always feel lucky
but i'm smart enough to try
cuz humility has buoyancy
and above us only sky
so i lean in
breathe deeper that brutal burning smell
that surrounds the smoldering wreckage
that i've come to love so well
yes, color me stunned and dazzled
by all the red white and blue flashing lights
in the american intersection
where black crashed head on with white
comes a melody
comes a rhythm
a particular resonance
that is us and only us
comes a screaming ambulance
a hand that you can trust
laid steady on your chest
working for the better good
(which is good at its best)
and too, bearing witness
like a woman bears a child:
with all her might

born of the greatest pain
into a grand canyon of light

i mean, no song has gone unsung here
and this joint is strung crazy tight
and people bin raising up their voices
since it just ain't bin right
with all the righteous rage
and all the bitter spite
that will accompany us out
of this long night
that will grab us by the hand
when we are ready to take flight
seatback and traytable
in the upright and locked position
shocked to tears by each new vision
of all that my ancestors have done

like, say, the women who gave their lives
so that i could have one

people, we are standing at ground zero
of the feminist revolution
yeah, it was an inside job
stoic and sly
one we're supposed to forget
and downplay and deny
but i think the time is nothing
if not nigh
to let the truth out
coolest f-word ever deserves a fucking shout!
i mean
why can't all decent men and women
call themselves feminists?
out of respect
for those who fought for this
i mean, look around
we have this

yes
i love my country
by which i mean
i am indebted joyfully
to all the people throughout its history
who have fought the government to make right
where so many cunning sons and daughters
our foremothers and forefathers
came singing through slaughter
came through hell and high water
so that we could stand here
and behold breathlessly the sight
how a raging river of tears
is cutting a grand canyon of light



Reprieve

manhattan is an island
like the women who are
surrounded by children in a car
surrounded by cars
or manhattan was a project
that projected the worst of mankind
first one and then the other
has made its mark on my mind

it's sixty years later
near the hypo-center of the a-bomb
i'm in the middle of hiroshima
watching a twisted old eucalyptus tree wave
one of the very few lives that survived and lives on
remembering the day it was suddenly
thousands of degrees in the shade
and what all of nature gave birth to
terror took in a blinding rey
with the kind of pain
it would take cancer so many years just to say

oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded
a man's world in your little girl's head
the voice of the great mother drowned out
in the constant honking
haunting the car crash up ahead
oh to grow up hypnotized
and then try to shake yourself awake
cuz you can sense what has been lost
cuz you can sense what is at stake
yeah, so
it took me a few years to catch on
that those days i catch everyone's eye
correspond with those nights of the month
when the moon gleams like an egg in the sky
and men are using a sense they don't even know they have
just to watch me walk by
and me, i'm supposed to be sensible
leave my animal outside to cry

but when all of nature conspires
to make me her glorious whore
it's cuz in my body i hold the secret recipe
of precisely what life is for
and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it
is the same one making war
and i've said too much already
but i'll tell you something more

to split yourself in two
is just the most radical thing you can do
so girl if that shit ain't up to you
then you simply are not free
cuz from the sunlight on my hair
to which eggs i grow to term
to the expression that i wear
all i really own is me
yes to split yourself in two
is just the most radical thing you can do
goddess forbid that little atom
should grow so jealous of eve
and in the face of the great farce
of the nuclear age
feminism ain't about equality
it's about reprieve