Names And Dates And Times
i know so many white people
i mean, where do i start?
the trouble with white people
is you can't tell them apart
i'm so bad with names and dates and times
but i'm big on faces
that is, except for mine

i believe you when you tell me
we've met before
this time you've got my interest
this time you've got the floor
why don't you go and tell me something
i don't already know
give me something to remember you by
when you go

i eat too much
i laugh too long
maybe i'll like too much of you
when i'm gone

let's go over to the window
and sit in the neon light
let's go out walking
you know, it's garbage night
let's go down to the east river
and throw something in
something we can't live without
and then let's start again

the more you talk
the more i get
the sense of something
that hasn't happened yet
the more you talk
the more i want to know
the way i'll remember you
when i go

i eat too much
i laugh too long
maybe i'll like too much of you
when i'm gone

i am so many white people
i mean where do i start
they've got lots of personalities
i just can't tell them apart
and i never remember anything
except for those things
which i never forget you know
there's no in between

i'm big on your face
yeah it's big in my mind
you're like the rest of the human race
you're one of a kind

Anyday
i will lean into you
and you can be the wind
i will open up my mouth
and you can come rushing in
you can rush in so hard
and make it so i can't breathe
i breathe too much anyway
i can do that anyday

i just wish i knew who you were
i wish you'd make yourself known
probably you don't know i'm her
the woman you want to call home
i'll keep my ear to the wall
i'll keep my eye on the door
'cause i've heard all my own jokes
and they're just not funny anymore
i laugh too much anyway
i can do that anyday

have you ever been bent or pulled
have you ever been played like strings
if i could see you i could strum you
i could break you
make you sing
but i guess you can't really see the wind
it just comes in and fills the space
and everytime something moves
you think that you have seen its face
and i've always got my guitar to play
but i can do that anyday

Forth 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

Willing To Fight
the windows of my soul
are made of one way glass
don't bother looking into my eyes
if there's something you want to know,
just ask
i got a dead bolt stroll
where i'm going is clear
i won't wait for you to wonder
i'll just tell you why i'm here

'cause i know the biggest crime
is just to throw up your hands
say
this has nothing to do with me
i just want to live as comfortably as i can
you got to look outside your eyes
you got to think outside your brain
you got to walk outside you life
to where the neighborhood changes

tell me who is your boogieman
that's who i will be
you don't have to like me for who i am
but we'll see what you're made of
by what you make of me
i think that it's absurd
that you think i
am the derelict daughter
i fight fire with words
words are hotter than flames
words are wetter than water

i got friends all over this country
i got friends in other countries too
i got friends i haven't met yet
i got friends i never knew
i got lovers whose eyes
i've only seen at a glance
i got strangers for great grandchildren
i got strangers for ancestors

i was a long time coming
i'll be a long time gone
you've got your whole life to do something
and that's not very long
so why don't you give me a call
when you're willing to fight
for what you think is real
for what you think is right

Egos Like Hairdos
i saw on the poster
my name was printed
just a little bit smaller
i can tell you need to stand
just a little bit taller
no one ever talks about it
but no one can disguise
the cloud of competition
that's hanging behind their eyes
there's more bad blood
in this bar than there is beer
and it's subtle but it still sucks
and i want out of here

we got egos like hairdos
they're different every day
depending on how we slept the night before
depending on the demons that are at our door

they told me you wanted to play last
every profession has its system of castes
so they reverse the order we go on
and then you stand at the bar
and you talk through my songs

we've got egos like hairdos
they're different every day
depending on how we slept the night before
depending on the demons that are at our door

everybody loves the underdog
but no one wants to be him
the press will fatten you up
and then they'll dig their teeth in
it's cool to discover someone
it's hard to support them
everyone is playing life
like it's some stupid sport

we got egos like hairdos
they're different every day
depending on how we slept the night before
depending on the demons that are at our door

i got my kitchen stocked
i got my door unlocked
there're no demons here
and i don't really care
whose name is printed in bigger type
you know i live in a world full of hope
not a world full of hype
i ain't no saint
i help myself to what i need
but i help other people too
y'know i sleep soundly

Back Around
my lipstick
jumped ship
to a styrofoam cup
with the coffee gone
the conversation strong
all i got left to give
baby, is up
but sentiments like shadows grow
oh so long

guess i gotta go
don't get up
don't cry
it's really very simple
just kiss my cheek and say goodbye
i never really go anywhere anyway
i just pass through from time to time

bye bye baby
baby bye bye
maybe i'll see you
next time i'm in town
maybe when i'm through
falling off the face of the earth
i'll come back around
you know i love to come back around

ten hours of driving
will make your mind
kind of numb
but it's better than
ten dollars an hour
slamming a hammer on my thumb
and it's better than
five dollars an hour
selling people shit
i wouldn't buy myself
at least at the end of the day
i'm always somewhere else

bye bye baby
baby bye bye
maybe i'll see you
next time i'm in town
maybe when i'm through
falling off the face of the earth
i'll come back around
you know i love to come back around

Blood In The Boardroom
sitting in the boardroom
the i'm-so-bored room
listening to the suits
talk about their world
they can make straight lines
out of almost anything
except for the line
of my upper lip when it curls
dressed in my best greasy skin
and squinty eyes
i'm the only part of summer here
that made it inside
in the air-conditioned building
decorated with corporate flair
i wonder
can these boys smell me bleeding
though my underwear

there's men wearing the blood
of the women they love
there's white wearing the blood of the brown
but every woman learns to bleed from the womb
and we bleed to renew life
every time it's cut down
i got my vertebrae all stacked up
as high as they go
i but i still feel myself sliding
from the earth that i know
so i excuse myself and leave the room
say my period came early
but it's not a minute too soon

i go and find the only other woman on the floor
is the secretary sitting at the desk by the door
i ask her if she's got a tampon i could use
she says
oh honey, what a hassle for you
sure i do
you know i do
i say
it ain't no hassle, no, it ain't no mess
right now it's the only power
that i possess
these businessmen got the money
they got the instruments of death
but i can make life
i can make breath
sitting in the boardroom
the i'm-so-bored room
listening to the suits talk about their world
i didn't really have much to say
the whole time i was there
so i just left a big brown bloodstain
on their white chair

Born A Lion
i'm not hurting anyone
i'm just telling my truth
and if there
if there is something wrong
then maybe
there's something wrong with you
what's the big deal
get over it
relax
just 'cause i do up in your face
what other people do behind your back
why we all gotta look
gotta act the same
i say
if you're born a lion
don't bother trying to act tame
everything i do
i do for the first time
i got a big crush on you
and it's crushing my mind
can i follow you home
and listen to you think
leave my lip prints on your cups
leave my hairs in your sink
they think i'm out there
out there living on the fringe
well
this is my world
and i invited them in
they should try living
by my rules for a day
nobody would die
there'd be lots of stuff to say
i'm not hurting anyone
no i'm not hurting anyone

My I.Q.
when i was four years old
they tried to test my i.q.
they showed me a picture
of 3 oranges and a pear
they said,
which one is different?
it does not belong
they taught me different is wrong
but when i was 13 years old
i woke up one morning
thighs covered in blood
like a war
like a warning
that i live in a breakable takeable body
an ever increasingly valuable body
that a woman had come in the night to replace me
deface me
see,
my body is borrowed
yeah, i got it on loan
for the time in between my mom and some maggots
i don't need anyone to hold me
i can hold my own
i got highways for stretchmarks
see where i've grown
i sing sometimes
like my life is at stake
'cause you're only as loud
as the noises you make
i'm learning to laugh as hard
as i can listen
'cause silence
is violence
in women and poor people
if more people were screaming then i could relax
but a good brain ain't diddley
if you don't have the facts
we live in a breakable takeable world
an ever available possible world
and we can make music
like we can make do
genius is in a back beat
backseat to nothing if you're dancing
especially something stupid
like i.q.
for every lie i unlearn
i learn something new
i sing sometimes for the war that i fight
'cause every tool is a weapon -
if you hold it right.

Used To You
i'm still here because
i've got nothing else to do
you're an asshole
but i'm getting used to you
i like the fact that
you talk incessantly
i got a thing for assholes
who tell good stories

i think that drinking
is the only thing that you do right
you're gonna self-destruct
i think that's what i like
you like me so you try and make me
feel like shit
i think it's kind of funny yeah
i kind of enjoy it

if you're gonna do it, overdo it
that's how you know you're alive
go ahead, take yourself a coma nap
take a puddle dive

you said, this is my bedroom window
you said, this is my view
you said, lie down here with me
and see the things that i do
like you were trying to tell me something
about the way you live
like you would give me something
if you had something to give

and for all your talk
you don't say much that's real
i think i know more than you
about the way that you feel
i understand your anger
and your apathy
i think if i was you,
you're who i'd be

i'm still here
'cause i got nothing else to do
you're an asshole but
i'm getting used to you
i could love you, yeah
i've entertained the thought
but i could never like you
so i guess i'd better not

Pick Yer Nose
how come i can pick my ears
but not my nose
who made up that rule anyway
how can you say that's the way it is
that's just the way it goes
why don't you decide for yourself
what you can do
and what you can say

how come i can pick my friends
but not my enemies
what is it about me that offends
what is it about me
'cause you know i'm only five foot two
and i'm giggly wiggly
tell me again, what did i do
why are you scared of me
i fight with love
and i laugh with rage
you've gotta live light enough
to see the humor
and long enough to see some change

i think shy is boring
i think depressed is too
i think pretty is nice
but i'd rather see something new
all these plastic people
got their plastic surgery
but we got a big big beautiful
we got it for free
who you gonna be
if you can't be yourself
you can't get it from t.v.
you can't force it on
anybody else

you know they come to clear cut
they come to strip mine
they come for some of my big butt
my big brain
or just a little time
they wanna take me out to dinner
think i'm a bitch if i don't go
seems like the people who actually like me
won't allow me to say no
your idea of a conversation
is the third degree
but i don't really know you
and i don't really want to talk about me

'cause i'm not going to pretend
that i don't pick my nose
that's just the way it is, my friends
that's just the way it goes
this is who i am
what i do
and what i say
if you like it, let it be
if you don't, please do the same
i fight with love
i laugh with rage
you gotta live light enough to see the humor
and long enough to see some change

God's Country
state trooper thinks i drive too fast
pulled me over to tell me so
i say out here on the prairie
any speed is too slow
i miss brooklyn i miss my crew
let's start over
i missed my cue
guess i just forgot
who i was talking to

i should have recognized
that fierce look in his eyes
i've seen it in the mirror
so many times
he's going to put his two cents in
'cause he's got a gun
but i'm gonna put in three
'cause history owes me one

guess i came out here to see some
stuff for myself
i mean, why leave the telling
up to everybody else
this may be god's country
but it's my country too
move over mr. holiness
and let the little people through

thank you for serving and protecting
the likes of me
thank you for the ticket
now can i leave?
you know i have left everywhere
i have ever been
i don't really recommend it
though not like anyone asked me
maybe you and i
will meet again someday
i've been known to
come down this road
call it destiny
and then again
maybe not
i don't kn