Ani DiFranco Album

I love you and you love me 
And ain't that that way it's supposed to be?
I swing my stick legs 'round from the root 
And I pile drive each foot into a platform boot. 
And I'm up and I'm out cuz I'm bouncing off the walls. 
And I come when you call and you call. 
I got a super cute three piece suit. 
One piece for your body. 
One piece for your smile. 
One more little piece if you stay a while. 
Yeah, cuz I love you and you love me. 
Ain't that the way it's supposed to be? 
I gotta beeline double time. 
Leave my home sweet home for your honeycomb. 
Then I show up steady ready and proud and I find I've forgotten how to talk out loud. 
Isn't it just like you to bring me to my knees in my brand new stockings 
While the cat is out with my tongue. 
Isn't it just like you to bring me to my knees in my brand new stockings. 
Love makes me feel so dumb.
Cuz I love you and you love me and ain't that the way it's supposed to be?
Yeah, cuz I love you and you love the me. 
Ain't that the way it's supposed to be?

If you ask me
I'll say yes please to you today
So don't ask me
Cuz I'm weak that way
Just don't ask me O.K.

I'm so glad we got that straightened away

If you see me walk by
You better just let me walk by
You better not bat your pretty eyes
You better not stop me to say Hi

I got a sweet tooth today
So you better not cut that pie

If you ask me
I'll say yes please to you today
So don't ask me
Cuz I'm weak that way
Just don't ask me O.K.

Some crazy fucker carved a sculpture out of butter 
And propped it up in the middle of the bonanza breakfast bar 
And I am stuffing toast and sausage into my pockets 
Under a sign that says grand opening 
While my dog is waiting in the car

I wake up, I check out 
I fill the tank and wash the windshield clean 
Then I'm back out on the highway 
And BANG that's when I remember my dream: 

We were standing in a garden 
And I had a machine that made silence 
It just sucked up the whole opinionated din 
And there were no people on the payroll 
And there were no monkeys on our backs 
And I said, show me what you look like 
Without skin

Science chases money 
And money chases its tail 
And the best minds of my generation
Can't make bail 
But the bacteria are coming to take us down
That's my prediction
It's the answer to this culture
Of the quick fix prescription 

But in the garden of simple
Where all of us are nameless
You were never anything but beautiful to me
And, you know, they never really owned you
You just carried them around 
And then one day you put 'em down 
And found your hands were free

So now it's early in the morning 
At the longitude of memphis 
And the sun is setting sweetly on hong kong
And the big plan is just to keep spinning 
Cuz the big bang is only just beginning 
And sometimes it's all that we can do just to hang on 

And what I meant to say is xxoo which means I'm thinking of ya 
Which means i've been thinking of you 
All along

The answer came like a shot in the back 
While you were running from your lesson
Which might explain why years later all you could remember was the terror of the question. 
Plus, you weren't listening hard
You were stockpiling canned goods and making a bomb shelter of our basement.
And I can't believe you let the moral go by while you were soaking in the product placement. 
And where was your conscience? 
Where was your consciousness? 
And where did you put all those letters that you wrote to yourself but could not address? 
Yeah, I'm a good kisser, and you're a fast learner
And that kind of thing could float us for a pretty long time. 
And then one day, you'd realized you've memorized my phone number
And you'll call it and find it's a disconnected line. 
Cuz I got tossed out the window of love's el camino 
And I shattered into a shower of sparks on the curb. 
You were smoking me weren't you between your yellow fingers
You just inhaled and exhaled without saying a word. 
where was your conscience? 
Where was your consciousness? 
And what did you do with all those letters you wrote to yourself but could not address? 
There's a smorgasbord of unspoken poisons
The whole childhood of potions that are all bottled up
And so one by one I am dusting off labels
I am uncorking bottles and I am filling up cups.
Go ahead and have a taste of your own medicine. 
Here I'll have a taste of mine
But first let's toast to the lists that we hold in our fists of the things 
That we promised to do differently next time. 
Cuz the answer came like a shot in the back 
While you ran from your lesson which might explain 
Why years later all you could remember the terror of the question. 
Cause I'm not listening to you anymore. 
My head is too sore and my heart's perforated 
And I am mired in the marrow of my "well ain't that funny?" bone
Learning how to be alone and devastated. 
Where was my conscience? 
Where was my consciousness? 
And where do I put all these letters that I wrote to myself but could not address?

It's a heartbreak even situation
Nothing lost and nothing gained
So I'm 10 years old again 
Standing in the backyard waving at a train

I feel you make love to me slightly 
Every time you let a little laugh slip too soon 
And the moment passes over us so lightly 
It feels like sand blowing over a dune 

You try not to let your emotions show
But it ain't a balloon you can just let go 
It's an ice cream cone dripping in the sun 
Sticky hands
Sticky arms
Sticky situation 

It's a heartbreak even situation
One part powerful elation 
One part pitiful and frail 
And I'm trying to feel my way around 
A book of promises written in braille 

There is pressure from within this
And pressure from above
There is pressure on our tenuous, strenuous love 
And there's wet wool blankets one, two, three 
Laid onto my chest 
'Til I just can't breathe

And I try not to let my emotions show 
But it ain't a balloon I can just let go 
It's an ice cream cone dripping in the sun 
Sticky hands
Sticky arms
Sticky situation 

I love us both but I don't feel good
So I keep pulling over
And looking under the hood
I love us both but I'm at wit's end
Where does your compromise begin and mine end?
I love us both but what
World's it gonna be?
The one according to you
Or the one according to me?

I don't feel good so ...
Now do my problems include talks with doctors 
Who don't even understand about food?
I think in ancient China they kinda figured out how the body works
But our culture is just a roughneck
Teenage jerk
With a bottle of pills
And a bottle of booze
And a full round of ammunition
And nothing to lose

And is it really the best we can do
To arm wrestle over whose world it's gonna be?
(The one according to you
Or the one according to me)

I love us both and I'll see ya
If you'll see me
So ... who are we?

Today we are only whatall is nice about us
Today we turned on in the blue light of dawn
And made love

And you were not a dot dot dot
Waiting for me to complete you
And it was like I just forgot
To measure everything that I do

We woke up with the notion
That enough is not enough without more
And then we pushed with one motion
Like the ocean heaves a wave at the shore

And you were not a dot dot dot
Leaning forward expectantly
And I was not in such a rush
To insure my autonomy

Today we are only whatall is nice about us

What what what what what did you think you were doing?
How how how how how did you think this would go?
When when when when when you showed up on my radar
Where where where where where did you think you would show?
What what what what what do you make of this station
How how how how how it pulls away from the train?
When when when when when if at all will you realize
Where where where where where do and done are the same?
What what what what what now you're out in the open
How how how how how do you think you can hide?
When when when when when will you find some nice soft sand
Where where where where where you can bury your pride?
What what what what what do you want from this lifetime?
How how how how how does your story line flow?
When when when when when you finally get to the punch line 
Where where where where where will the applause sign go?

And why why why why why don't you just take your bow
Cuz who's gonna love you now?

She was cuffed to the truth like the truth was a chair with a bright interrogation
Light in her eyes, and her conscience with a cigarette just stood there,
Waiting for her to crack, waiting for her to cry. 
They scampered through the room like a roach across a wall. 
Yeah, they made her skin sore. 
Yeah, they made her skin crawl.
They said, "we got this confession. we just need for you to sign. 
Why don't you just cooperate? 
Make this easier on us all? 
Make this easier on us all... 
Just make this easier on us all." 
There was light and then there was darkness. 
And there was no line in between. 
And asking her heart for guidance was like pleading with a machine. 
Yeah, cause joy it has its own justice and my dreams are languid and lawless. 
And everything bows to beauty when it is fierce and it is flawless... 
When it is fierce... when it is flawless..." 
On the table were two zip-loc baggies containing her eyes and her smile.
They said we're keeping these as evidence until this thing goes to trial. 
Meanwhile anguish was fingering solace in another room down the hall.
Both were love's accomplices but solace took the fall. 
Now look at her book of days, it's the same on every page. 
She's got a little tin cup with her heart in it to bang along the bars of her rib cage... 
To bang along the bars of her rib cage... 
There was light and then there was darkness. 
And there was no line in between. 
And asking her heart for guidance was like pleading with a machine. 
Cause joy it has its own justice and my dreams are made with all of us. 
They said "everything bows to beauty when it is fierce and it is flawless... 
When it is fierce... 
When it is flawless..." 
Fierce...
Flawless...

It's rock paper scissors as to whether I will get over you at all. 
It's hand against hand and both hands are mine. 
It's standing in a circular line, which is not to say that I'm not also happy. 
A happy meal with a surprise inside. 
Surprise, surprise is another bright light in my eyes
Exposing all the stuff I'm not calculating enough to hide. 
This melancholy that I carry makes me feel so grown up at the kitchen table doing shots of resignation. 
I never thought I'd see the day 
When I would I say I give up and tame the stallions of my wildest expectations. 
But I do not want to know you this way, surrounded by so much pain.
But how am I supposed to let go of you this way, like a bird into the sky of my brain? 
I think I could accept all these dark colors as just part of some bigger color scheme 
If it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness underscoring each smiling scene.
Yeah desire drags me right out of myself like a gas soaked rope tied to a piece of coal. 
And I'm getting pretty good at looking at the bright side
While the flames ripple on the sand and swallow me whole. 
But this melancholy that I carry makes me feel so grown up at my kitchen table doing shots of resignation. 
I never thought I'd see the day 
When I would say I give up and break the stallions of my wildest expectations. 
But I do not want to know you this way surrounded by so much pain
But how am I supposed to let go of you this way like a bird into the sky of my brain.

Coming of age during the plague of Reagan and Bush
Watching capitalism gun down democracy
It had this funny effect on me
I guess

I am cancer
I am HIV
And I'm down at the blue Jesus
Blue Cross hospital
Just lookin' up from my pillow
Feeling blessed

And the mighty multinationals
Have monopolized the oxygen
So it's as easy as breathing
For us all to participate

Yes they're buying and selling off shares of air
And you know it's all around you
But it's hard to point and say "there"
So you just sit on your hands
And quietly contemplate

Your next bold move
The next thing you're gonna need to prove to yourself

What a waste of thumbs that are opposable
To make machines that are disposable
And sell them to seagulls flying in circles
Around one big right wing

Yes, the left wing was broken long ago
By the slingshot of cointelpro
And now it's so hard to have faith in anything

Especially your next bold move
Or the next thing you're gonna need to prove to yourself

You want to track each trickle
Back to its source
And then scream up the faucet
'Til your face is hoarse
Cuz you're surrounded by a world's worth
Of things you just can't excuse

But you've got the hard cough of a chain smoker
And you're at the arctic circle playing strip poker
And it's getting colder and colder
Everytime you lose

So go ahead
Make your next bold move
Tell us
What's the next thing you're gonna need to prove to yourself

You can doubt anything if you think about it long enough. 
Cause what happened always adjusts to fit what happened after that. 
And it's hard to feel like you are free. 
All you seem to do is referee. 
I remember when it was just you and me steppin' up to bat. 
And win or lose, just that we chose, this little war is what kills us. 
And either or it's that this war is, maybe also what thrills us. 
We thought we left possession behind. 
The truth is I was yours and you weren't mine. 
I've replayed a thousand times exactly what was said.
Cause nothing is as it appears. 
And the fun house mirrors of your fears
On a roller coaster of all these years with your hands above your head. 
And win or lose, just that we chose, this little war is what kills us.
And either or it's that this war is, maybe also what thrills us. 
And you know I don't care how fast you run 
Just tell me baby that when you're done with your little marathon 
That you still have cab fare home. 
Cause the finish line is a shifty thing and what is life with reckoning? 
And baby you are still the song I sing to myself when I'm alone. 
And win or lose just that you chose this little war is what kills you. 
And either or it's that this war is, maybe also what thrills you.

Who's gonna give a shit
Who's gonna take the call 
When you find out that the road ahead is painted on a wall
And you're turned up to top volume
And you're just sitting there in pause
With your feral little secret 
Scratching at you with its claws
And you're trying hard to figure out 
Just exactly how you feel
Before you end up parked and sobbing
Forehead on the steering wheel

Who are you now
And who were you then
That you thought somehow 
You could just pretend
That you could figure it all out
The mathematics of regret
So it takes two beers to remember now
And five to forget
That I loved you so
Yeah, I loved you, so what

How many times undone
Can one person be
As they're careening through the facade
Of their favorite fantasy
You just close your eyes slowly
Like you're waiting for a kiss
And hope some lowly little power
Will pull you out of this
But none comes at first
And little comes at all
And when inspiration finally hits you
It barely even breaks your fall

Who were you then 
And who are you 
Now that you can't pretend
That you can figure it all out
Subtract out the impact
And the fall is all you get
So it takes two beers to remember now
And three more to forget
That I loved you so
Yeah, I loved you, so what
I loved you
So what

Imagine that I'm on stage under a watchtower of punishing light.
And in the haze is your face bathed in shadow and what's beyond you is hidden from sight.
And somebody right now is yawning and watching me like a TV
And I've been frantically piling up sandbags against the flood waters of fatigue and insecurity.
And that's when I hear my guitar singing and so I just start singing along. 
And somewhere in my chest all the noise just gets crushed by the song. 
Imagine that I'm at your mercy, imagine that you are at mine. 
Just pretend that I've been standing here, watching you watching me all of this time.
Imagine that you are the weather in the tiny snow globe of this song.
And I am a statue of liberty one inch long. 
So here I am at my most hungry, and here I am at my most full. 
And here I am waving a red cape, locking eyes with a bull. 
Imagine that I'm on stage under a watchtower of punishing light.
And in the haze is your face bathed in shadow and what's beyond you is hidden from sight.

The sky is grey, the sand is grey, and the ocean is grey. 
I feel right at home in this stunning monochrome, alone in my way. 
I smoke and I drink and every time I blink I have a tiny dream. 
But as bad as I am I'm proud of the fact that I'm worse than I seem. 
What kind of paradise am I looking for? 
I've got everything I want and still I want more. 
Maybe some tiny shiny thing will wash up on the shore. 
You walk through my walls like a ghost on TV
You penetrate me and my little pink heart is on its little brown raft floating out to sea. 
And what can I say but I'm wired this way and you're wired to me
And what can I do but wallow in you unintentionally? 
What kind of paradise am I looking for?
I've got everything I want and still I want more. 
Maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore. 
Regretfully, I guess I've got three simple things to say. 
Why me? Why this now? Why this way? 
Overtone's ringing, undertow's pulling away under a sky that is grey on sand 
That is grey by an ocean that's grey. 
What kind of paradise am I looking for? 
I've got everything I want and still I want more. 
Maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore.

White people are so scared of black people. 
They bulldoze out to the country, and put up houses on little loop-d-loop streets. 
And while America gets its heart cut right out of its chest
The Berlin wall still runs down main street separating east side from west. 
And nothing is stirring, not even a mouse, in the boarded up stores and the broken down houses
So they hang colorful banners off all the street lamps 
Just to prove they got no manners, no mercy, and no sense. 
And I wonder then what it will take for my city to rise. 
First we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes. 
The ghost of old buildings are haunting parking lots in the city of good neighbors that history forgot. 
I remember the first time I saw someone lying on the cold street
I thought, "I can't just walk past you, this can't just be true." 
But I learned by example to just keep moving my feet. 
It's amazing the things that we all learn to do. 
So we're led by denial like lambs to the slaughter
Serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water and the old farmroad's a four-lane 
That leads to the mall and my dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall
And I wonder then what it will take for my country to rise. 
First we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes.
'til nation's last taker succumbs to one last dumb decision 
And America the beautiful is just one big subdivision.

I'll sing you a song that starts out descriptive
And locates a time and a place
Like a dinner table where a whole family
Is just sitting down to say grace
An old old song that moves into action
Taking its sweet sweet time
And waits until we all say amen
Again and again in rhyme

It's the story of a father and a mother
Who battle each other over nothin'
With a couple of kids trying to figure
Which way the plot's spinning
Who's winning and who is bluffing

It's a story as common as a penny, son
It ain't really worth anything to anyone

Poor little sore little song
That aches like a muscle each time that it moves
Sad little song that you play
And you play and you play
And you play 'til you lose
While history is outside writing a recipe book
For every earthly pain
This song is inside finger painting dark swirls
Again and again and they all look the same

Cuz what if you come home from school one day
And you find your whole family's at war
And there's this ominous silence just waiting to be broken
And there's secret places for hiding underneath the floorboards
And everyone seems to be bracing
For the subharmonic thunder of the next bomb
And everyone seems to be waiting for the cops to bust in
With their guns drawn
At the bleak light of dawn

It's a story as common as a penny, son
I don't think it's worth anything to anyone

How sick of me must you be by now? 
While you're standing just outside of what your pride will allow
Always reaching into yourself to find a new way to understand me. 
When I'm sure that there's no one else in the world that could withstand me. 
Yeah, the first person in your life to ever really matter is
Saying the last thing that you want to hear. 
And you are listening hard through the splintering shards of your life as it shatters. 
And you're standing firm and you're staying close and you're seeing clear. 
I took to the stage with my outrage in the bad old days when you were the "make me mad" guy. 
But the songs they come out more slowly now that I am the bad guy. 
And I say, baby I'm sorry that I am so crazy, I am astounded by your patience. 
But you say
"believe or not baby, the joy you bring me still outweighs it."
Yeah, the first person in your life to ever really matter is 
Saying the last thing that you want to hear. 
And you are listening hard through the splintering shards of your life as it shatters
And you're standing firm and you're staying close and you're seeing clear. 
Tell me how sick of me must you be by now?

She went over to his apartment
Clutching her decision
And he said, did you come here to tell me goodbye?
So she built a skyscraper of procrastination
And then she leaned out the twenty-fifth floor window 
Of her reply
And she felt like an actress
Just reading her lines
When she finally said yes. 
It's really goodbye this time
And far below was the blacktop
And the tiny toy cars
And it all fell so fast 
And it all fell so far

And she said:
You are a miracle but that is not all
You are also a stiff drink and I am on call
You are a party and I am a school night
And I'm lookin' for my door key 
But you are my porch light

And you'll never know, dear
Just how much I loved you
You'll probably think this was
Just my big excuse
But I stand committed
to a love that came before you
And the fact that I adore you
Is but one of my truths

What of the mother
Whose house is in flames
And both of her children
Are in their beds crying
And she loves them both
With the whole of her heart
But she knows she can only carry one at a time?
She's choking on the smoke of unthinkable choices
She is haunted by the voices of so many desires
She's bent over from the business of begging forgiveness
While frantically running around putting out fires

But then what kind of scale
Compares the weight of two beauties
The gravity of duties
Or the ground speed of joy?
Tell me what kind of gauge 
Can quantify elation?
What kind of equation could I possibly employ?
And you'll never know, dear 
Just how much I loved you 
You probably think this was 
Just my big excuse
But I stand committed
To a love that came before you
And the fact that I adore you
Is just one of my truths

So I
I'm goin' home to please the one I so love pleasing
And I don't expect he'll have much sympathy for my grieving
But I guess that this is the price
That we pay for the privilege of living for even a day
In a world with so many things 
Worth believing in

You were so in love
That it was all you could talk about
And I think I felt a little left out
You were on cloud 9 all the time
Ehile I was levelling
I was wringing my hands and you were revelling

But then why shouldn't you?
It was such a beautiful thing to do

Would that I could get me some of your yum yum delirium
I could level off the ground that we stand on
But with you down on bended knee
Always looking up at me
That feeling of standing up together is gone

And though I love you through all time and space
My love always seems to take second place

You were so in love
That it was all you could talk about
And I think I felt a little left out
You were on cloud 9 all the time
While I was levelling
I was wringing my hands and you were revelling

But then why shouldn't you?
It was such a beautiful thing to do

Even when I look right at you 
I always just see through 
And I always just see new things to admire about you

Am I what you thought you were getting?
Does this love we make make you proud?
Does it look like it did on the menu
Minus, of course, the little dark cloud?

'Course when we signed up for forever
We had no idea it was in here
I guess always is all this and then some
I guess at least that much is clear
And whenever I look at you
You know, I always just see through 
And I always just see new things to admire about you