Ani DiFranco Album

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 mildfed surburban blues
Reaches for the avaliable aresenal
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

I don't keep much stuff around
I value my portability
But I will say that I have saved
Every letter you ever wrote to me
The one you left on my windshield
Outside of that little motel
Is in the pocket of my old gigbag
From back when life was more soft shelled

Letters littered with little lewd pictures
Drawn by the ghost of Woddy Guthrie
Who would use your big thick hand
Just to draw one two for me

And I think of your letters as love letters
Which is how I think of songs
In that it is the writing of them
That tend to carry us along
And I dance to one of your old tunes
With my true love on our wedding day
And your voice sang the way my heart would sing
If it finally knew just what to say

Two people pulled over on the same night
To look up at the same stars
They both found their wheels were spinning
In a soft shoulder
When they got back into their cars
And they missed fate's appointed rendezvous
And then a whole lotta time went by
And finally they were done
Worshipping the landscape
And they put down their hands
And moved into the sky

And they had barely said hello
And it was time to say goodbye
Goodbye ............

I'm losing my love of adventure
I'm losing all respect
For me and myself tonight
I wonder what happens if I get to
The end of this tunnel
And there isn't a light
I've worn down the treads
On all of my tires
I've worn through the elbows
And the knees of my clothing
And I'm stumbling down
The gravel driveway of desire
Trying not to wake up
My sleepy self-loathing

Do you ever have that dream
When you open your mouth
And you try to scream
But you can't make a sound
That's everyday starting now
That's everyday starting now

Don't tell me it's gonna be alright
You can't sell me on your optimism tonight
It's a stiff competition
To see who can stay up later
The stars or the street lights
And all they really want
Is to be alone with the darkness
No more wish I may
No more wish I might

It takes a stiff upper lip
Just to hold up my face
I gotta suck it up and savor
The taste of my own behavior
I am spinning with longing
Faster then a roulette wheel
This is not who I meant to be
This is not how I meant to feel

I don't think I am strong enough
To do this much longer
God, I wish I was stronger
This song could never be long enough
To express every longing
God, I wish it was longer...

Going once
Going twice
Sold to the girl who ignored all the good advice
Of all the people who knew better
She just stood there
On the front porch
Waiting for her (will) to come and get her
She was packed
She had a suitcase
Full of noble intentions
She had a (map)
And a staight face
Hell bent on reinvention
And she was ready for a long day
She was in it for it (only)
And they said "you think that you don't need us
But you're not going to get far
All your big ideas are suckers
None of them work
None of them have cars"
But she was not deterred
It was like she hadn't heard a word
And just then a primer grey el camino
Pulled up to the curb

Going once
Going twice
Down the road less taken
Through the coffee
And the wd40
And the gasoline
And the beer
There was always someone there to say
Why don't you just stay
And hang your hat
Here

But she was packed
She had a suitcase
Full of fumbles and near misses
She was swinging through a jungle of last calls and first kisses
And she was learning about please
About hugh/cute? humilities
And then one day she looked around her
And everything up till then was showing
And she wondered how did I get here
Without even knowing where I was going
And now there's no getting out of this
And there's no going back
And it all seems so odd sometimes
And the odds all seemed stacked

Going once
Going twice
Sold to the girl 
Who ignored all the (good) advice
Of all the people who knew better(for better or for worse) 
Of all the people who knew worse
Yeah her will was her chaufFer 
Yeah her will was her curse

She was packed
She had a suitcase
She had a map 
And a straight face 
She was ready for the lonely
She was in it forever 
She was in it forever
She was in it 
She was in it ...........

Hold me down
I am floating away
Into the overcast skies
Over my home town
On election day

What is it about Birmingham?
What is it about buffalo?
Did the hate filled wanna build bunkers
In your beautiful red earth
They want to build them
In our shiny white snow

Now I've drawn closed the curtain
In this little booth where the truth has no place to stand
And I am feeling oh so powerless
In this stupid booth with this useless
Little lever in my hand
And outside my city is bracing
For the next killing thing
Standing by the bridge and praying
For the next doctor
Martin Luther King

It was just one shot
Through the kitchen window
It was just two miles from here
If you fly like a crow
A bullet came to visit a doctor
In his one safe place
A bullet ensuring the right to life
Whizzed past his kid and his wife
And knocked his glasses
Right off of his face

And the blood poured off the pulpit
Yeah the blood poured down the picket lines
Yeah, the hatred was immediate
And the vengence was divine
So they went and stuffed god
Down the barrel of a gun
And after him
They stuffed his only son

Hello birmingham
It's buffalo
I heard you had some trouble
Down there again
And I'm just calling to let to know
That someone understands

I was once escorted
Through the doors of a clinic
By a man in a bulletproof vest
And no bombs went off that day
So I am still here to say Birmingham
I'm wishing you all of my best
Oh Birmingham
I'm wishing you all of my best
Oh Birmingham
I'm wishing you all of my best on this election day

She cam to and her
Whole life was how she remembered it
She had a mouth full of fur
And she was laughing
She parked her hearse across
Three spaces posted for motorcycles only
And jumped out shouting
What the cus could make a nice girl like us
Feel so lonely?

Are you weary as water
In a faucet left dripping
With an incessant sadness
Like a sad record skipping
And an ugly and ornery
And shadowy dread
Lurking like a troll under the bridge
Between your heart and your head

Please dumb blind kind sir
Lend little miss listless a bit of Christmas
She's been a real good girl
But now she's stuck here
The world is so little and still
Mysterious and ominious as ever before
Like an unmarked bottle full of pills
On the shelf right next to the ting
You were reaching for

Swing the groove 'round here
Where I can reach it
When I get my ass back on track
I'm gonna need it
Swing shift til I get the money
To buy me and my baby a moon full of honey
Then I'm gonna turn the nagging voices
Inside my head
That follow me to bed and say
You suck.. blah blah blah

How pleased can one
Sun setting make you
If you humble yourself to it?
How grateful can you
Really say that you are
Just to be here and live through it?
And when beauty asks a question
How often do you reply?
How often do you wonder about life on the other side?
On the other side of sorrow
On the other side of rage
On the other side of ok
OK at all in any way
Imagine what loneliness
Will drive someone to do
Now multiply that times me
And multiply that times you
Now imagine what it would take to make
This all happen again
And just when you think you're gonna cry
Multiply that times ten 
You are distracting me
From all other activities
And I know the fact of your presence
Will dominate my memory of this restaurant this table
This day and this town
Cuz I carry you, baby
I carry you around

Gonna go out to the arrivals gate at the airport
And sit there all day
Watch people reuniting
Public affection so exciting
It even makes airports OK
Watching children run
With their arms outstretched
Just to throw those arms
Around their grandpa's neck
Watching lovers plant kisses
Old men to their misses
At their arrivals gate

Watching a mother
With a mother's smile
Don't tell me to move
I just wanna sit here for a while
I have determined
It's a sure cure for cancer
Watching excitement turn family dogs into dancers
At the arrivals gate

I got me a white bread sandwich
With some shredded lettuce
And I got me a ringside view
For my quaint little fetish

I just wanna drain my pink little heart of all its malice
And kick back for the afternoon
In this fluorescent palace

Everybody's in a hurry
Here in purgatory
Except for me
I'm where I need to be

At the arrivals gate

Who knew
At this party that
I would walk in and I'd see you
I gues snow
We could just get drunk
Yeah and that could be our excuse
You could slip
And outta nowhere
I could be there to catch your fall
And we could laugh
At ourselves
And the writing that's on the wall

It's a narrow margin
Just room enough for regret
In the inch and half between
Hey, how ya been?
And can I kiss you yet?
So we talk like nervous neighbors over a tall fence
True love
But for the lack of providence

But I just got one more
Thing to tell you

Cuz words are vitamins
And life is short
And I know when we get up
To the front office
We're gonna have to fill out
A full report
The first question will be
What were you thinking?
And the next question will be
What did you say?
And then they're gonna check to see
If the answers to one and two
Matched up much
Along the way

In the interest of poetry
And the cowboy movie
That's you and me
I'm back on the horse now
And I'm riding
I am striding so effortlessly
What I mean is it's late
Much too late for us
And I'm fixing to go home
With just my conscience
And a bitter sense of irony
As my chaperone

I know this bar
With a jukebox full of medicine
And Christmas lights blinking
Around a clouded mirror
It's not that far
From old voelkers bowling alley
Just go up there and turn right
It's about three blocks from here

You'll probably find grace
Her shift starts at happy hour
She's got this sweet face
Easy as tea leaves to read
You gotta know what to look for
You gotta know what's there to find
But then I guess you don't really know her
So nevermind

I used to hang out a lot around here
In that part of town
Where all the white kids
Still have feathered hair

I know this song
With this one really killer line
I don't remember it exactly
But it slays me every time
It's on the jukebox there
I know it's number 5403
Go put that song on for me won't you
And make gracie think of me