Ani DiFranco Album

You are subtle as a window pane
Standing in my view
But I will wait for it to rain
So that I can see you
You call me up at night
When there's no light passing through
And you think that I don't understand
But I do

We don't say everything that we could
So that we can say later
Oh, you misunderstood
I hold my cards up
Close to my chest
I say what I have to
And I hold back the rest

'Cause someone you don't know
Is someone you don't know
Get a firm grip, girl
Before you let go
For every hand extended
Another lies in wait
Keep your eye on that one
Anticipate

Dress down get out there
Pick a fight with the police
We will get it all on film
For the new release
Seems like everyone's an actor
Or they're an actor's best friend
I wonder what was wrong to begin with
That they should all have to pretend
We lost sight of everything
When we have to keep checking our backs
I think we should all just smile
Come clean and relax

If there's anything I've learned
All these years on my own
It's how to find my own way there

Tending the garden of noise
When I grow the traffic
And the churchbells
And the neighborhood boys
Singing to myself
As the solitude sets in
In tune with the symphony of South Brooklyn
I sing

Rockabye, rockabye baby
Rockabye, the baby that is me
Rockabye, rockabye baby
Rockabye til I'm fast asleep

The tunnel is train torn
The tracks are worn and sore
I can feel the rattle
Riding up through the floor
She jumped the turnstyle
He paid for his ride
I am the echo in the station
Where their footfalls collide
I left her at the epicenter
We were trembling dutifully
I left him too
I left parts of me
Singing rockabye...

I said today I am leaving
In every sense of the word
But I'm in love with your memory already
Everything I've seen and heard
And I will go singing
As the solitude sets in
In time with the rythym
Of everywhere I have been

She says forget what you have to do
Pretend there is nothing
Outside this room
And like an idea she came to me
But she came too late
Or maybe too soon
I said please try not to love me
Close your eyes, I'm turning on the light
You know I have no vacancy
And it's awfully cold outside tonight

The rain stains the brick a darker red
Slowly I'm rolling out of her bed
The rain stains the streets a darker black
I dress my face in stone
Because I can't go back

I feel her eyes watching me
From behind the curtain of her hair
And she says I'm sorry
I didn't mean to stare
I say I think I really have to go now
But oh baby, maybe someday

I'm gonna turn and walk away
You can wait
Til I am far along
Then run and come
And catch my arm
And say you'd die
If I were gone
I want to hear you call my name
It's too easy
Just to say it soft
I don't like my language watered down
I don't like my edges rounded off

I can't always wait
For your circumstance to improve
Love is loose it shifts each time you move
Go ahead, put my back against the wall
Give it all up
Or don't give it to me at all
You never know this could be our last night
So step back
Step back into the light
So I can see your silouette
I'm not done looking yet

Safe the profile for the camera
Give me your eye to eye
I know all your secrets
And you know all of mine
Mostly I don't go
For the soft focus and the fantasy
I need something real
I can think and say and see so

I'm going to turn and walk away
You wait til I am far along
Then run and come
And catch my arm
And say you'd die
If I were gone
Yes I'm going to turn
And walk away
You can watch me go

Death has been your lover
He has brought you
The edges of your life
And now you are looking over
And all we can say is
It's gonna be all right
And I am looking forward to looking back on these days
When on every corner
Someone holds a sign
That says I'm homeless
I'm hungry and
I have AIDS

How will they define our generation in the coming decades
Who will tell the story and what will they say?
Will they say the victims were thought of as criminals
While the guilty sat on high deciding their fate
Ticking off statistics in their spare time
Tell me, which is the crime?

May you never test positive
Pregnancy
HIV
May you never be the receptacle of blame
May you never be the scapegoat for a whole world full of shame
May you never be fighting for your life 
And at the same time have to fight for your name

There are too few who open both eyes
We sit back in our easy chairs
And we try to sympathize
Whether from the point of a needle or the edge of our beds
We too, like too many others, could be dead
Our actions will define us
Before a single definition can be said
Yeah, so what if god is testing us
What if that's true
What are you going to do

She was shaking and talking
Louder and louder
Each sentence was sifted to a very fine powder
Her face was wet and tight
Her grip was cold and light
A strong wind could blow you down
I heard myself say
Word up sister
A strong wind could take me away

I said how long have
You been at large
They told me you were stashed
Last time I asked
She said I've been out now
For all of three hours
I just resurfaced
And here you are
I must admit
That it has been hard
So far

I said skeletons are fine
Your closet or mine
And we took turns recounting
The details of lost time
And when we had both
Admitted it all
We threw our heads back
And laughed until we cried
We laughed because the world is absurd and beautiful and small

There we were
Washed up on the curb
As the rush hour traffic
Went out with the tide
And I was aware that
With every word spoken and shared
I could see her shaking subside
I said sister looks to me

In a forest of stone
Underneath the corporate canopy
Where the sun rarely filters down
The ground is not so soft
Not so soft

They build buildings to house people
Making money
Or they build buildings to make money
Off of housing people
It's true
Like a lot of things are true
I am foraging for a phone booth on the forest floor
That is not so soft
I look up
It looks like the buildings are burning
But it's just the sun setting
The solar system calling an end to another business day
Eternally circling signally
The rythmic clicking on and off of computers
The pulse of the American machine
The pulse that draws death dancing
Out of anonymous side streets
You know
The ones that always get dumped on and never get plowed
It draws death dancing
Out of little countries
With funny languages
Where the ground is getting harder
And it was not that soft before

Those who call the shots are never in the line of fire
Why
Where there's life for hire out there
If a flag of truth were raised
We could watch every liar rise to wave it
Here we learn America like a script
Playwright
Birthright
Same thing
We bring ourselves to the role
We're all rehearsing for the presidency
I always wanted to be commander in chief of my one woman army

But I can envision the mediocrity of my finest hour
It's the failed America in me
It's the fear that lives in a forest of stone
Underneath the corporate canopy
Where the sun rarely filters down

I am evening the score
I am cutting the umbilical cord
Curled with my teeth against my knees
I am scratching at my consciousness
Like a bitch with fleas
I think you'll be greatly pleased
To learn that yours was the hardest itch to relieve

This is me
Without my hair
Welcome to my open stare
I got nothing to hide no more
Why disguise what isn't there
I am an eyesore
I am a detour
You can find me crying on
The shoulder of the road
And I will tell you
What you want to hear
Before you go
And that is that
Yours was the hardest itch to relieve
Yours was the hardest itch to relieve

I've mapped out my course
Looks like it's all uphill
I've got a heavy heart to carry
But a very strong will
It's just hard to travel
In the shadow of regret
In fact it's so hard

Thank you for letting me stay here
Thank you for taking me in
Thank you for the beer and the food
Thank you for loaning me bus fare
Thank you for showing me around
That was a very kind thing to do
Thank you for the use of the clean towel
Thank you for half of your bed
We can sleep here like brother and sister, you said

But you changed the rules in an hour or two
And I don't know what you and your sisters do
But please don't 
Please stop
This is not my obligation
What does my body have to do
With my gratitude?

Look at you
Little white lying
For the purpose of justifying
What you're trying to do
I know that you feel my resistance
I know that you heard what I said
Otherwise you wouldn't need the excuse

Thank you
For letting me stay here
Thank you for taking me in
I don't know where else
I would have turned
But I don't come and go
Like a pop song
That you can play incessantly
And then foget when it's gone
You can't write me off
And you don't turn me on

So don't change the rules in an hour or two
I don't know what you and your sisters do
But please don't
Please stop
This is not my obligation

We can touch
Touch our girl cheeks
And we can hold hands
Like paper dolls
We can try
Try each other 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

Hello
It's me
I'm returning your call
It's Monday Wednesday Friday
Between noon and three
He says I usually just let the phone ring
But I've always got a minute of time
For the next big thing

And I wonder
How can he see where he's going
With those dollar signs in front of his eyes?
I say thank you for your interest
But my thing is already just the right size

Hello
It's me
Yes I'll play for the door
Nothing more
On a Tuesday
He says baby
What is your name
I forgot
He says baby
Tell me again
Are you really hot

And I think
He does not hear what I'm saying
He's just looking at my eight by ten
And wondering about
The part that was left out
Does she have a body
That will really draw them in?

How much do you want
How much are you willing to do
Baby this is no business
For a sweet little girl like you
Can you play the game
Act it out
Frame for frame
Do you know your lines
Let's hear them one more time

But I'd rather pay my dues to the six people sitting at the bar 
Than to all those men in their business suits
Who say I'll take you away from this

She sat there like a photograph of someone much further away
We shared a brief bus stop
On one of those inbetween days
She gave me her smile
And I looked underneath at the lipstick on her teeth

She asked me for a light
And if I thought her hair looked okay
We grew out of the small talk
Into stuff strangers just don't say
We discovered we are both
Pleasantly furious half of the time
When we're not just toeing the line

We sat underneath the shelter
As the rain came down outside
The bench was cold
Against the underside of our thighs
I said I think we need new responses
Each question's a revolving door
And she said, yeah,
My life may not be something special
But it's never been lived before

We decided our urgency will wane
When we grow old
And there will be a new generation of anger
New stories to be told
But I said, I don't know if I can wait
For that peace to be mine
And she said, well, you know,
We've been waiting for this bus

I am looking for the holes
The holes in your jeans
Because I want to know
Are they worn out in the seat
Or are they worn out in the knees

There are so many ways to wear
What we've got before it's gone
To make use of what is there
I don't wear anything I can't wipe my hands on

Do your policies fit between the headlines
Are they written in newsprint, are they distant
Mine are crossing an empty parking lot
They are a woman walking home at night alone
They are six string that sing
And wood that hums against my hipbone

We can't afford to do anyone harm
Because we owe them our lives
Each breath is recycled from someone else's lungs
Are enemies are the very air in disguise

You can talk a great philosophy
But if you can't be kind to people every day
It doesn't mean that much to me
It's the little things you do
The little things you say
It's the love you give along the way

When we patch things up
They say a job well done
But when we ask why
Where did the rips come from
They say we are subversive
And extreme, of course
We are just trying to track a problem to its source

Because we know we can't sit back
And let people come to harm
We owe them our lives
Each breath is recycled from someone else's lungs
Our enemies are the very air
Our enemies are the air

We are looking for the holes
The holes in your jeans
Because we want to know
Are they worn out in the seat