Song Break

my i.q. ~ ani difranco

when i was four years old
they tried to test my i.q.
they showed me a picture
of 3 oranges and a pear
they said,
which one is different?
it does not belong
they taught me different is wrong
but when i was 13 years old
i woke up one morning
thighs covered in blood
like a war
like a warning
that i live in a breakable takeable body
an ever increasingly valuable body
that a woman had come in the night to replace me
deface me
see,
my body is borrowed
yeah, i got it on loan
for the time in between my mom and some maggots
i don't need anyone to hold me
i can hold my own
i got highways for stretchmarks
see where i've grown
i sing sometimes
like my life is at stake
'cause you're only as loud
as the noises you make
i'm learning to laugh as hard
as i can listen
'cause silence
is violence
in women and poor people
if more people were screaming then i could relax
but a good brain ain't diddley
if you don't have the facts
we live in a breakable takeable world
an ever available possible world
and we can make music
like we can make do
genius is in a back beat
backseat to nothing if you're dancing
especially something stupid
like i.q.
for every lie i unlearn
i learn something new
i sing sometimes for the war that i fight
'cause every tool is a weapon -
if you hold it right.

---

coming up


our father who art in a penthouse
sits in his 37th floor suite
and swivels to gaze down
at the city he made me in
he allows me to stand and
solicit graffiti until
he needs the land i stand on
in my darkened threshold
am pawing through my pockets
the receipts, the bus schedules
the matchbook phone numbers
the urgent napkin poems
all of which laundering has rendered
pulpy and strange
loose change and a key
ask me
go ahead, ask me if i care
i got the answer here
i wrote it down somewhere
i just gotta find it
i just gotta find it

somebody and their spray paint got too close
somebody came on too heavy
now look at me made ugly
by the drooling letters
i was better off alone
ain't that the way it is
they don't know the first thing
but you don't know that
until they take the first swing
my fingers are red and swollen from the cold
i'm getting bold in my old age
so go ahead, try the door
it doesn't matter anymore
i know the weak hearted are strong willed
and we are being kept alive
until we're killed
he's up there the ice
is clinking in his glass
he sends me little pieces of paper
i don't ask
i just empty my pockets and wait
it's not fate
it's just circumstance
i don't fool myself with romance
i just live
phone number to phone number
dusting them against my thighs
in the warmth of my pockets
which whisper history incessantly
asking me
where were you

i lower my eyes
wishing i could cry more
and care less,
yes it's true,
i was trying to love someone again,
i was caught caring,
bearing weight

but i love this city, this state
this country is too large
and whoever's in charge up there
had better take the elevator down
and put more than change in our cup
or else we
are coming
up

Toxicity ~ System of a Down

Conversion, software version 7.0,
Looking at life through the eyes of a tire hub,
Eating seeds as a past time activity,
The toxicity of our city, of our city,

New, what do you own the world?
How do you own disorder, disorder,
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence,
Sacred silence and sleep,
Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep,
Disorder, disorder, disorder.

More wood for their fires, loud neighbors,
Flashlight reveries caught in the headlights of a truck,
Eating seeds as a past time activity,
The toxicity of our city, of our city,

New, what do you own the world?
How do you own disorder, disorder,
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence,
Sacred silence and sleep,
Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep,
Disorder, disorder, disorder.

New, what do you own the world?
How do you own disorder, disorder,
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence,
Sacred silence and sleep,
Somewhere, between the sacred silence and sleep,
Disorder, disorder, disorder.

When I became the sun,
I shone life into the man's hearts,
When I became the sun,
I shone life into the man's hearts.

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

Er, can I add two of my political-ish songs, if that's okay?

Naughts and Ones

Here we go, now. They're dealing with naughts and ones again:
Dystopia or bliss,
The isn't or the is.
It's just a binary of lies.

Do you see how they're trading in West and East again?
Old freedom versus fear,
while apocalypse draws near
(cathodes burning out our eyes)?

Oh, how these myths can serve to spread
the law of naughts and ones;
but how might Freedom help the dead?
Bring back all fallen sons?

Unseen mothers, unmarked graves.
All these naughts will count as one the free world never saves...

That's just the dumb show. Wait for the play they'll stage again:
The slow decline of Rome
and an emperor in shame.
How we know that sad demise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5fwMtnFCAk


and:


Raven Star

Purify the last book with fire: the heretics have twisted the Word.
There’ll be no last war, nor a final score that’ll tally the chosen and damned.
Show the pious and proud man, a liar: show the lawmaker, breaking his code.
Follow them no more, find your deep heart core as the store of all judgments planned.

Turn away from false prophets, fearmongering for profits.
Turn away from the marketplace preachers of a Last Day of blood.
Hear your heart call the wisdom deep inside all:
That the Great Day must dawn, from our good.

There’s a raven star over me, and I swear it’s a man made omen, mere prey in the sky.
It’s an angel who’ll sound the last day, not a raven star priest with our death in his eye.

Close down the temples that deal with the warlords who pray as they steal.
Close down the places when men with red faces cry “freedom” before they cry “kill”.
Know that The Light is real, in your heart as the blood you can feel.
The last book tells lies: men seek to disguise their methods of hate as God’s will.

Find The Way in acceptance, Find The Truth in forgiveness,
Find The Light in a heart that won’t hate, that refuses to fear.
But don’t pander to the devil-as-commander:
The chief of the nation, the father of tears.

There’s a raven star over me, and I swear it’s a man made omen, mere prey in the sky.
It’s an angel who’ll sound the last day, not a raven star priest with our death in his eye.
There’s a raven star over me, and I swear it’s a man made omen, mere prey in the sky.
It’s an angel who’ll sound the last day, not a raven star priest with our death in his eye.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NffR61uYy7E

Of course it's ok, we'd be honored!

blood in the boardroom ~ ani difranco

sitting in the boardroom
the i'm-so-bored room
listening to the suits
talk about their world
they can make straight lines
out of almost anything
except for the line
of my upper lip when it curls
dressed in my best greasy skin
and squinty eyes
i'm the only part of summer here
that made it inside
in the air-conditioned building
decorated with corporate flair
i wonder
can these boys smell me bleeding
though my underwear

there's men wearing the blood
of the women they love
there's white wearing the blood of the brown
but every woman learns to bleed from the moon
and we bleed to renew life
every time it's cut down
i got my vertebrae all stacked up
as high as they go
i but i still feel myself sliding
from the earth that i know
so i excuse myself and leave the room
say my period came early
but it's not a minute too soon

i go and find the only other woman on the floor
is the secretary sitting at the desk by the door
i ask her if she's got a tampon i could use
she says
oh honey, what a hassle for you
sure i do
you know i do
i say
it ain't no hassle, no, it ain't no mess
right now it's the only power
that i possess
these businessmen got the money
they got the instruments of death
but i can make life
i can make breath
sitting in the boardroom
the i'm-so-bored room
listening to the suits talk about their world
i didn't really have much to say
the whole time i was there
so i just left a big brown bloodstain
on their white chair