Playlist Ani Difranco

ani difranco - rockabye

tending the garden of noise
when i grow the traffic
and the church bells
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 till 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 turnstile
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 rhythm
of everywhere i have been
it sounds like rockabye...

ani difranco - 32 flavors

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
and I'm beyond your peripheral vision
so you might want to turn your head
cause someday you're going to get hungry
and eat most of the words you just said

both my parents taught me about good will
and I have done well by their names
just the kindness I've lavished on strangers
is more than I can explain
still there's many who've turned out their porch lights
just so I would think they were not home
and hid in the dark of their windows
til I'd passed and left them alone

and god help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
and god help you if you are a pheonix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying back

I'm not trying to give my life meaning
by demeaning you
and I would like to state for the record
I did everything that I could do
I'm not saying that I'm a saint
I just don't want to live that way
no, I will never be a saint
but I will always say

squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you might find you're starving
and eating all of the words you said

ani difranco - 4th of july

you gotta have the right tools
for every job
so i invite myself in
through a hole in the fence
i am tripping through the junkyard
scanning over the piles
the thin cats raise their skin in defense
i know he's watching me
i can see him through the cracks
his eyes are small and shy on my back
he says his name is jason
he lives in the last trailer on the right
and he'll be seven
on the fourth of july

only the people who live here
know the name of this place
my path through iowa would be
hard to trace
all the adults in this town
try not to frown
when i walk by
but jason smiled at me
he met my eye

he don't ask me
where i'm from
or why i came
here alone
we all go looking for paradise
then we go back home
we cut out the small talk
go right to the way things are
he showed me his squirrel skull
i told him i locked myself out of my car

so there goes the only friend
i have in iowa
his hand flapping behind him
waving good-bye
his name is jason
he lives in the last trailer on the right
and he'll be seven
on the fourth of july

ani difranco - 78 h2o

when the joy had left your body
and you were locked in to your own thoughts
you used to love to sit by the water
and watch it lapping on the rocks
and every time you put your feet in
you'd cry out and you would pray
but it's all downhill from here baby
so naturally, i can't stay

first you'll roll your eyes to heaven
say you never had love so divine
but it will go from
more than ever
to not enough
in no time
you will push and
you will push un-
til you push me away
i hear you cry out for your water
and i know you'll curse it someday

i guess for me
there's been a few
who've walked up smiling
and drawn a line
between so far
and from now on
yes a big glowing
line in time
and i've been disappointed
i've been heartbroken
yes i too have
loved from afar
but we are 78% water
even our pumping hearts

© 2006 righteous babe music / bmi

ani difranco - a spade

A Spade
I will not lie down
On the wrongful ground or play
While it's still a radical sound
Just to call a spade a spade
Dear friends, women and men
Please check my math once more
In the totality of all war's history
There's but one common denominator
The answer is in the intention
That lies behind the question
Put that on your standardized multiple choice
I mean, how's this supposed to look to me
But half of divinity
Out there trying to make harmony
With only one voice

You know I've got experience
Looking right past the obvious
So I know what is so big and so close
Is always the hardest stuff
For us to reckon with
The hardest stuff to know

Dear friends, especially the women,
Tell me are you up to the task?
Of turning the wheel on human history
At long last

The answer is in the intention
That lies behind the question
Put that on your standardized multiple choice
I mean, how's this supposed to look to me
But half of divinity
Out there trying to make harmony
With only one voice

I will not lie down
On the wrongful ground or play
While it's still a radical sound
Just call a spade a spade

Dear friends, women and men
What better time to face
That we've been looking for
The answer to war
In the wrong place

ani difranco - adam and eve

Tonight you stooped to my level
i am your mangy little whore
now you're trying to find your underwear
and then your socks and then the door
and you're trying to find a reason
why you have to leave
but i know it's 'cuz you think you're adam
and you think i'm eve

you rhapsodize about beauty
and my eyes glaze
everything i love is ugly
i mean really, you would be amazed
just do me a favor
it's the least that you can do
just don't treat me like i am
something that happened to you

i am truly sorry about all this

you put a tiny pin prick
in my big red balloon
and as i slowly start to exhale
that's when you leave the room
i did not design this game
i did not name the stakes
i just happen to like apples
and i am not afraid of snakes

i am truly sorry about all this
i envy you your ignorance
i hear that it's bliss

so i let go the ratio
of things said to thing heard
as i leave you to your garden
and the beauty you preferred
and i wonder what of this
will have meaning for you
when you've left it all behind
i guess i'll even wonder
if you meant it
at the time

ani difranco - aids

Everywhere she looks
she looks through the corner of her eye
everytime she left
she never turned to say goodbye
swaying in the corner of the ballroom
alone by the music
she looked like a spiderweb

fresh from the war
he complements her bedroom decor
she crawled in there like water
she drowned in there on the floor
she left him gasping for air
and crying for more.
and the morning sun was embarrassed to find them
lying together
neither could remember the other's name
he stepped out of her mind
and into the hall
and they never saw each other again.
whoaa...
and someone gave her a manual of love in the world today
and that page is not pulpy because there is no proper way
it's so easy for those with the unclenching eye
to find some unfulfilled human being to fry
she is looking for the kisses that she never got at home
her lips are puckered and she is walking alone
and if she ends up with some dirty hot disease
its a small price she pays for the need to be pleased.
and there are too few who open both eyes
we sit back in our easy chairs and try to sympathize
but whether from the point of a needle
or the edge of her bed
our heroine like too many others now is dead
and lisa is lucky, she ended up with a baby boy
she's 16 years old, doesn't know her body's not a toy
joel is hungry, he is doing the town
andrea is on the rebound.
walk to the corner and run from what you find
we have to abort our cannibalistic state of mind.
everywhere she looked
she looked through the corner of her eye
and everytime she left she never turned to say goodbye
swaying in the corner of the ballroom
alone by the music
she looked like a spiderweb.

fresh from the war
he complements her bedroom decor
she didn't know this time she was the victim
he had nothing to lose anymore...

ani difranco - ain t that the way

I love you
and you love me
and ain't that the way
it's supposed to be?

i swing my stick legs 'round at the root
and 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 i'm called
and you called

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

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

ani difranco - akimbo

what dreams cause me
to abandon my pillow each night?
push away each of them, in fact
since there always seem to be more than one
then wake to aching stiff neck twisted
tits and face smashed against the mattress
legs and arms akimbo
like the high pitched body of a jumper
waiting for her chalk outline
finally at rest

ani difranco - amazing grace

Amazing grace
how sweet the sound
that save a wretch like me
i once was lost
but now i'm found
was blind but now i see

'twas grace that taught
my heart to fear
and grace that fear relieved
how precious did
that grace appear
the hour i first believed

through many dangers
toils and snares
i have already come
'twas grace that brought me
safely thus far
and grace will lead me home

and when this heart
and flesh shall fail
and mortal life shall cease
i shall possess
within the vale
a life of joy and peace

ani difranco - amendment

Wouldn't it be nice if
We had an amendment
To give civil rights to
Women
To once and for all just
Really lay it down from
The point of view of women

I know what you're thinking
That's just redundant
Chicks got it good now
They can almost be president
But is worker against worker
Time and time again
Cause the rich use certain issues as a tool
When i say we need the e.r.a ain't cause i'm a fool
It's cause without it nobody can get away
With anything cruel

And you don't need to go far like
Just over to canada
To feel the height and sense of
Live and let live
What is it about americans
Like so many pit-bulls
Trained to attack them
To never give

We gotta put down abortion
Put it down in the books for good
As central to the civil rights
Of women
Make diversity legal
Make it finally understood
Through the civil rights of women

And if you don't like abortion
Don't have an abortion
And teach your children
How they can avoid them
But don't treat all women
Like they are your children
Compassion has many faces
Many names
And if men can kill and be decorated
Instead of blamed
Then a woman called upon to mother
Can choose to refrain

And contrary to eons
Of old time religion
Your body is your only
True dominion
Nature is not here to serve you
Or at any cause to preserve you
That's just some preacher man's
Old time opinion

Life is sacred
Life is also profane
A woman's life
It must be hers to name
Let out an amendment
Put this brutal game to rest
Trust, women will still take you
To their breast
Trust, women will always
Do their best
Trust, our differences make us stronger
Not less

In this amendment shall be
Family structure shall be free
We'll have the right to civil our unions
With equal rights and
Equal protection
Intolerance finally
Ruined

And then there's the kids rights
They'll naturally be on board
The funnel through which
Women's lives are poured
Our family is so big
And we're all so very small
Let a web of relationship
Be laid over it all

Over the strutter of power piled up to the sky
Over the illusion of autonomy on which it relies
Over any absolute that nature does not supply

And the birthing woman shall regain her place
In a circle of women, in a sacred space
Turn off the machines, put away the knifes
This amendment shall deliver from bondage midwives

ani difranco - angel food

If the mattress was a table top
and the bed sheet was a page
we'd be written out
like a couple of question marks
my convex
to your concave
we'd be lying here
to be under the sunsets

are you ready now
are you gonna glow in the dark
are you gonna show me how

do you like to watch when water misbehaves
do you like waves
as the wind shifts and shifts again
the sails smile
and then he slaps around the mast

the mattress was a table top
the bed sheet was a page
we'd be lying here
my convex
to your concave

you come to me
with cake in your pocket
you come to me
nicely
like that soft kinda cake that's mostly icing
you come to me ready and
we'll bring the angel food
bring the angel food
angel food
angel food

ani difranco - angry anymore

Angry Anymore
Growing up it was just me and my mom
Against the world
And all my sympathies were with her
When I was a little girl
But now I've seen both my parents
Play out the hands they were dealt
And as each year goes by
I know more about how my father must have felt

I just want you to understand
That I know what all the fighting was for
And I just want you to understand
That I'm not angry anymore
I'm not angry anymore

She taught me how to wage a cold war
With quiet charm
But I just want to walk
Through my life unarmed
To accept and just get by
Like my father learned to do
But without all the acceptance and getting by
That got my father through

Night falls like people into love
We generate our own light
To compensate
For the lack of light from above
Every time we fight
A cold wind blows our way

But we learn like the trees
How to bend
How to sway and say

I, I think I understand
What all this fighting is for
And baby, I just want you to understand
That I'm not angry anymore
No, I'm not angry anymore

ani difranco - animal

more and more there is this animal
looking out through my eyes
at all the traffic on the road to nowhere
at all the shiny stuff around to buy
at all the wires in the air
at all the people shopping
for the same blank stare
at america the drastic
that isolated geographic
that's become infested with millionaires

when you grow up surrounded
by willful ignorance
you have to believe
mercy has its own country
and that it's round and borderless
and then you have to grow wings
and rise above it all
like there
where that hawk is circling
above that strip mall

more and more there is this animal
looking out through my eyes
seeing that animals only take from this world
what they need to survive
but she is prowling through all the religions of men
seeing that time and time and time again
their gods have made them
special and above
nature's law
and the respect thereof

and i think when you grow up surrounded
by willful ignorance
you have to believe that mercy has its own country
and that it's round and borderless
and then you just grow wings
and rise above it all
like there where that hawk is circling
above that strip mall

ask any eco-system
harm here is harm there
and there and there
and aggression begets aggression
it's a very simple lesson
that long preceded any king of heaven
and there's this brutal imperial power
that my passport says i represent
but it will never represent where my heart lives
only vaguely where it went

cuz i know when you grow up surrounded
by willful ignorance
you learn that mercy has its own country
and that it's round and borderless
and then you just grow wings
and rise above it all
like there
where that hawk is circling
above that strip mall

ani difranco - anticipate

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
and how to find my own way back home

ani difranco