Ani DiFranco

[fox69]

"The Waiting Song"

"The Waiting Song"



your basic average super star
is singing about justice
and peace
and love
and I am glaring at the radio,
swearing
saying that's just what I was afraid of
the system gives you just enough
to make you think that you see change
they will sing you right to sleep
and then they'll screw you just the same

but I will wait
yes, I will wait for the truth

they think I make a big deal about nothing
but they still think I'm
kinda cute
they joke about the staus quo
to break the ice
once the ice is broken
I hope they all fall through
'cause this is no joke to me
they don't fool me
with their acts of sensitivity
they too shall pass
just like everyone
who's only here for my ass

and I can't wait
oh I can't wait til they get their due

baby I've only got a minute
baby I have to go
a minute is all my life
will ever allow
let's grow old
and die together
let's do it now
because you'll do all the jobs
no one else will do
and you'll step aside
and you will let me come through
you have all my respect
I'll leave it here when I go
maybe I never told you, baby
maybe you don't know

but maybe if we wait
if we wait things will improve
maybe we just wait
and things will improve
you know, they've got to improve

your basic average superstar
is singing about justice
and peace
and love
and I am glaring at the radio
swearing
saying that's just what I was afraid of
the system gives you just enough
to make you think that you see change
they'll sing you right to sleep
and then they'll screw you just the same

he says I know you have to go
you have gone before
we are fighting on two different fronts
of the same war
but no matter what else
I will do
I will wait for you

 

[fox69]

"The Whole Night"

"The Whole Night"



we can touch
touch our girl cheeks
and we can hold hands
like paper dolls
we can try
try eachother on
in the privacy
within new york city's walls
we can kiss
kiss goodnight
and we can go home wondering
what would it be like if
if I did not have a boyfriend
we could spend
the whole night

I am waking up
in her bed
I sing 1st avenue
the open window said
always late to sleep
late to rise
lying here watching the day go by
in the living room
there are people on the carpet
having stupid conversations
just to hear themselves talk
and I am drifting through
I am heading for the kitchen
I am thinking of her fingers as I walk...

 

[fox69]

"This Bouquet"

"This Bouquet"



got a garden of songs where i grow all my thoughts
wish i could harvest one or two for some small talk
i'm always starving for words when you're around
nothing on my tongue so much in my ground

half the time i got my gaze trained on your motel door
fourth door from the end
rest of the time my gaze lays like a stain on the carpeted floor
if it weren't for my brain i'd go over and make friends
too bad about my brain 'cause i'd like to make friends.

see the little song bird unable to make a sound
even though she follows her words from town to town
we both have gardens of songs and maybe its okay
that i am speechless because i picked you this bouquet.

 

[fox69]

"Tiptoe"

"Tiptoe"



tiptoeing through the used condoms
strewn on the piers
off the west side highway
sunset behind the skyline of jersey
walking towards the water
with a fetus holding court in my gut
my body highjacked
my tits swollen
I'm sore
the river has more colors at sunset than my sock drawer ever dreamed of
I could wake up screaming sometimes
but I don't
I could step off the end of this pier
but I've got shit to do
and I've an appointment on tuesday
to shed uninvited blood and tissue
I'll miss you I say to the river
to the water
to the son or
daughter I thought better of
I could fall in love with jersey at sunset
but I leave
the view
to the rats
and tiptoe back

 

[fox69]

"To The Teeth"

"To The Teeth"



the sun is settin on the century
and we are armed to the teeth
we are all working together now
to make our lives mercifully brief
schoolkids keep trying to teach us
what guns are all about
confuse liberty with weaponry
and watch your kids act it out
every year now like Christmas
some boy gets the milk-fed sub-urban blues
reaches for the available arsenal
and saunters off to make the news
and women in the middle
are learning what poor women have always known
that the edge is closer than you think
when your men bring the guns home

look at where the profits are
that's how you'll find the source
of the big lie that you and i
both know so well
it the time it takes this cultural
death wish to run its course
they're gonna make a pretty penny
and then they're all going to hell
he said the chickens all come home to roost
yeah, malcom forecasted this flood
are we really gonna sleep through another century
while the rich profir off our blood?
true, it may take some doing
to see this undoing done
but in my humble opinion
here's what i suggest we do:

open fire on hollywood
open fire on MTV
open fire on NBC
and CBS and ABC
open fire on the NRA
and all the lies they told us
along the way
open fire on each weapons manufacturer
while he's giving head
to some republician senator

and if i hear one more time
about fool's rights
to his tools of rage
I'm gonna take all my friends
and I'm gonna move to Canada
and we're gonna die of old age

 

[fox69]

"Tr'w"

"Tr'w"



Make me say w
New paragraph o
New paragraph w
Oh my lover you
You could get me in trouble you

Make me ashamed
To meet your mother you
Oh my lover you
You could get me in trouble you

Yes as far as the eye can see
There is no other you
My lover you
You’re trouble you

Closer, closer, closer, come closer
Come closer, come closer, come closer

Make me say w
New paragraph o
New paragraph w

 

[fox69]

"Trickle Down"

"Trickle Down"



you cease to smell the steel plant
after you've lived there for a while
smoke is snow is ash are leaves that blow
through the air aloft
all our houses dim their sliding
to the same soot gray style
and we hang our laundry out on sundays
when they turn the furnaces off

everybody's daddy works up on the line
the stienbrenners and the wilczewskis
have been there the longest time
everybody's mommy squints into the sun
sunday afternoon after all the laundry's done

sometimes a distant siren
can set a dog to barking late at night
then it dominos on down
til every dog is joining in
the first rumours of the layoffs
sang like a distant siren might
and we all perked up our ears
and paced the fence
of the ensuing din

every night, we were glued to the tv news
at six o'clock
cuz it was hard to tell what was real
and what was talk
they explained about the cutbacks
all the earnest frowns
but what they didn't say was that the plant
was slowly shutting down

this town is not the kind of place
that money people go
they make their jokes up on the tv
about all the snow
and they're building condos downriver
from where the plant had been
but nobody really lives here
now that the air is clean

the president assured us
it was all gonna trickle down
like it'd be raining so much money
that we'd be sad to see the sun
mr. wilczewski's brother had some business
out in denver
so they left denver
and everybody knows they were the lucky ones

you cease to smell the steel plant
after you'v ebeen here for a while

 

[fox69]

"True Story Of What Was"

"True Story Of What Was"



The light blue flickering rhythm
Of the neighbor's big console T.V.
Is basking on the ceiling
Of another insomniac spree
And outside sleep's open window
Between the drops of rain
History is writing a recipe book
For every earthly pain

Oh to clean up the clutter of echoes
Coming in and out of focus
Words spoken
Like locusts
Sing and sing
In my head

And thing is
They often seem
In my memory's long dream
To be superfluous to
The true story of what was

Cuz

Real is real regardless
Of what you try to say
Or say away
Real is real relentless
While words distract and dismay
Words that change their tune
Though the story remains the same
Words that fill me quickly
And then are slow to drain
Dialogues that dither down reminiscent
Of the way it likes to rain
Every screen
A smoke screen
Oh to dream
Just for a moment
The picture
Outside the frame

Then in a flash
The light blue horizon
Spanning a sudden black
Is sucked into the vanishing point
And quiet rushes back
To search for the downbeat
In a tabla symphony
To search in the darkness
For someone who looks like me

(Though I'm not really who I said I was
Or who I thought I'd be)

Just a collection of recollections
Conversations consisting
Of the kind of marks we make
When we're trying to get a pen to work again

A lifetime of them!

Cough...cough...ahem...

I say to me
Now here listening
I say to the locusts
That sing and sing to me sitting
Now here on the front porch swing of my eyes...
I hereby amend
Whatever I've ever said
With this sigh

 

[fox69]

"Two Little Girls"

"Two Little Girls"


you were fresh off the boat from virginia
i had a year in new york city under my belt
we met in a dream
we were both 19
i remember where we were standing
i remember how it felt
2 little girls growing out of their training bras
this little girl breaks furniture, this little girl breaks laws
2 girls together
just a little less alone
this little girl cries wee wee
all the way home

you were always half crazy, now look at you baby
make about as much sense as a nursery rhyme
love is a piano dropped out a four story window
and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time

i don't like your girlfriend, yeah i don't like her
never seen one of your lovers do you so much harm
i loved you first and you know i would prefer
if she didn't empty her syringes into your arm

here comes little naked me padding up to the bathroom door
to find little naked you slumped on the bathroom floor
so i guess i'll just stand here with my back against the wall
while you distilled your whole life down to a 911 call
[chorus]

so now you bring me your bruises
so i can oh and ah at the display
maybe i'm supposed to make one of my famous jokes that makes everything ok
maybe i'm supposed to be the handsome prince who rides up and unties your hands
or maybe i'm supposed to be the furrow-browed friend who thinks she understands

here comes little naked me......[etc]

 

[fox69]

"Unrequited"

"Unrequited"



He had all kind of reasons
Why she was unable to love him
She was just too young
She was too high strung
She was afraid of commitment

But all of the theories
That he recited
Played like the song
Of the unrequited

And baby, how long's it been now
Since you held me to your chest
And told me that you love me
More than all the rest?

It's such a shame that you won't talk to me
'Cuz I won't repeat after you
I believe that there is more to life
We could've loved each other through
But I was afraid of commitment
When it came to you

I'll tell you, if there is one instinct
I just can't get with at all
It's the urge to kill something beautiful
Just to hang it on your wall

Are you just too young?
Are you too high strung
To actually follow through
On all the love you said you had?
Baby, I never lied to you
Is all or nothing
Really the best we can do?