# album ani difranco i am a work in progress dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding offering me intricate patterns of questions rhythms that never come clean and strengths that you still haven't seen -> the slant we're all citizens of the womb, before we subdivide into sexes and shades, this side, that side -> work your way out in the day to day, in the face to face i have to act, just as strong as i can just to preserve a place, where i can be who i am -> talk to me now in each other's shadows we grew less and less tall and eventually our theories couldn't explain it all -> both hands first light ugly and more muscular than the dark pushing poems at the urban silence drawing portraits of the passers-by -> dog coffee they keep pounding their fists on reality hoping it will break -> lost woman song i'm surrounded by the haves, they say i can have some too just because of what i do, do they think a lot about those who have not, or does it just distract them from what they do -> pale purple make me laugh, make me cry, enrage me but just don't try to disengage me -> rush hour i make such a good statistic, someone should study me now somebody's got to be interested in how i feel just 'cause i'm here, and i'm real -> fire door i would have returned your greeting if it weren't for the way you were looking at me this street is not a market and i am not a commodity -> the story # album not so soft 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 -> anticipate i will go singing, as the solitude sets in in time with the rhythm, of everywhere i have been -> rockabye i dress my face in stone, because i can't go back -> she says i don't like my language watered down i don't like my edges rounded off -> make me stay 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 -> on every corner we threw our heads back, and laughed until we cried we laughed because the world, is absurd and beautiful and small -> small world if a flag of truth were raised we could watch every liar rise to wave it here -> not so soft the mainstream is so polluted with lies once you get wet, it's so hard to get dry -> roll with it 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 -> itch i don't come and go, like a pop song, that you can play incessantly and then forget when it's gone -> gratitude there are people on the carpet having stupid conversations just to hear themselves talk -> the whole night 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? -> the next big thing my life may not be something special, but it's never been lived before -> brief bus stop 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 -> looking for the holes # album imperfectly what if it's just us down here what if god is just an idea someone put in your head -> what if no one's watching i can see her features begin to blur, as she pours herself into the mold he made for her, and for everything he does she has a way to rationalize -> fixing her hair he says, call me, miss difranco, if there's anything i can do i say, it's mr. difranco to you -> in or out some days the line i walk, turns out to be straight other days the line tends to deviate -> in or out i had to thumb a ride, got in the first car that pulled over you can't be picky in the middle of the night, he said baby, do you like to fool around, baby, do you like to be touched i said, maybe some other time, fuck you very much -> every state line gonna peel you out, of your protective shell or i might just have to, break right in there, and raise some hell -> circle of light standing like john wayne, she is full framed she is center stage, my imagination is rattling in its cage -> if it isn't her sometimes the beauty is easy, sometimes you don't have to try at all sometimes you can hear the wind blow, in a handshake sometimes there's poetry written right, on the bathroom wall -> good, bad, ugly you think i am stronger, you think i walk taller than the rest you think i'm usually wearing the pants, just cause i rarely wear a dress -> i'm no heroine go ahead, ask me if i care i got the answer here i wrote it down somewhere -> coming up i am matching the big boys, one for one and i must admit i am, having myself some fun -> make them apologize the system gives you just enough, to make you think that you see change they will sing you right to sleep, and then they'll screw you just the same -> the waiting song sometimes it seems like love is just a fancy word for compromise -> served faithfully i've been offered love, in two dimensions before, and i know that it's not all, that it's made out to be let's show them all how it's done, let's do it imperfectly -> imperfectly # album puddle dive the trouble with white people is you can't tell them apart -> names and dates and times 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 -> anyday all the adults in this town, try not to frown when i walk by, but jason smiled at me, he met my eye -> 4th of july 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 -> willing to fight whose name is printed in bigger type you know i live in a world full of hope not a world full of hype -> egos like hairdos 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 -> back around sitting in the boardroom, the i'm-so-bored room listening to the suits talk about their world -> blood in the boardroom 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 -> born a lion i sing sometimes, like my life is at stake 'cause you're only as loud, as the noises you make -> my i.q. i sing sometimes for the war that i fight 'cause every tool is a weapon - if you hold it right. -> my i.q. 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 -> used to you 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 -> pick yer nose 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 -> god's country # album out of range we are made to bleed, and scab and heal and bleed again and turn every scar into a joke -> buildings and bridges boys get locked up in some prison, girls get locked up in some house and it don't matter if it's a warden, or a lover, or a spouse -> out of range we barely have time to react in this world, let alone rehearse and i don't think i'm better than you, but i don't think that i'm worse -> letter to a john life is a b movie, it's stupid and it's strange, a directionless story and the dialogue is lame, but in the he said she said sometimes there's some poetry, if you turn your back long enough and let it happen naturally -> hell yeah me and you, and your girlfriend makes three in the interest of even numbers, i will make myself scarce i will make myself scarcely me -> how have you been come here, stand in front of the light, stand still so i can see your silhouette, i hope, you have got all night 'cause i'm not done looking, no, i'm not done looking yet -> overlap somebody do something, anything soon i know i can't be the only, whatever i am in the room so why am i so lonely?, why am i so tired? -> face up and sing you give me that look that's like laughing, with liquid in your mouth like you're choosing between choking, and spitting it all out like you're trying to fight gravity, on a planet that insists that love is like falling, and falling is like this -> falling is like this you'll say did they love you or what, i'll say they love what i do the only one who really loves me is you and you'll say girl did you kick some butt and i'll say i don't really remember, but my fingers are sore and my voice is too -> you had time it's a long long road, it's a big big world we are wise wise women, we are giggling girls we both carry a smile, to show when we're pleased -> if he tries anything i think you're the least fucked up person i've ever met and that may be as close to the real thing as i'm ever gonna get -> the diner # album not a pretty girl what good is a poker face, when you've got an open hand i was supposed to be cool about this, yeah i remember cool was the plan tried to keep it all under wraps, but the wraps kept going slack -> worthy the river has more colors at sunset than my sock drawer ever dreamed of -> tiptoe you could try to train me like a pet, you could try to teach me to behave but i'll tell you, if i haven't learned it yet i ain't gonna sit, i ain't gonna stay -> cradle and all 'let's not ask what's next, or how, or why' i am leaving in the morning so let's not be shy -> shy i don't know why red fades before blue it just does and i don't know what it is about me, that i just can't keep still -> sorry i am there's a crowd of people harbored in every person there are so many roles that we play and you've decided to love me for eternity i'm still deciding who i want to be today -> light of some kind i am not an angry girl, but it seems like i've got everyone fooled every time i say something they find hard to hear they chalk it up to my anger, and never to their own fear -> not a pretty girl i am not a pretty girl, that is not what i do i ain't no damsel in distress, and i don't need to be rescued so put me down punk, maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere -> not a pretty girl and what if there are no damsels in distress what if i knew that and i called your bluff? don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down whether or not you ever show up -> not a pretty girl no i don't prefer obscurity, but i'm an idealistic girl and i wouldn't work for you, no matter what you paid -> the million you never made why do you try to hold on to what you'll never get a hold on you wouldn't try to put the ocean in a paper cup -> hour follows hour 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 -> 32 flavours and god help you if you are a phoenix and you dare to rise up from the ash a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy while you are just flying past -> 32 flavours 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 till i'd passed and left them alone -> 32 flavours i want someone who's not afraid of me, or anyone else in other words i want someone, who's not afraid of themself -> asking too much if you hear me playing guitar, listen to what i'm not playing and don't ask me to put words, to all the silences i wrote don't ask me to put words, to all the spaces between notes -> asking too much i want somebody who can hold my interest, hold it and never let it go someone who can flatten me with a kiss, that hits like a fist or a sentence, that stops me like a brick wall -> asking too much got a garden of songs where i grow all my thoughts wish i could harvest one or two for some small talk -> this bouquet everyone needs to see the prisoner, they need to make it even easier they see me as a symbol, and not a human being that way they can kill me, say it's not murder, it's a metaphor -> crime for crime ask me, go ahead, ask me if i care i got the answer here, i wrote it down somewhere -> coming up # album dilate who am i, that i should be vying for your touch who am i, bet you can't even tell me that much -> untouchable face some people wear their heart up on their sleeve i wear mine underneath my right pant leg strapped to my boot don't think cause i'm easy i'm naive, don't think i won't pull it out don't think i won't shoot -> out of me i used to be a superhero, no one could touch me, not even myself you are like a phone booth, that i somehow stumbled into and now look at me, i am just like everbody else -> superhero when i say you sucked my brain out, the english translation is i am in love with you, and it is no fun but i don't use words like love, 'cuz words like that don't matter -> dilate i guess that you dialed my number, because you thought for sure that i'd agree i said baby, you know i still love you, but how dare you complain to me -> napoleon we're in a room without a door, and i am sure without a doubt they're gonna wanna know, how we got in here, and they're gonna wanna know how we plan to get out -> shameless just gimme your skeleton, give me the skin it's in, yeah baby, this is you according to me, i never avert my eyes, i never compromise so never never mind the poetry -> shameless how could you do nothing, and say, i'm doing my best how could you take almost everything, and then come back for the rest how could you beg me to stay. reach out your hands and plead and then pack up your eyes and run away, as soon as i agreed -> done wrong just like in a dream, you'll open your mouth to scream and you won't make a sound -> going down 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 -> adam and eve i do it for the joy it brings, because i'm a joyful girl because the world owes me nothing, and we owe each other the world -> joyful girl # album little plastic castle they say goldfish have no memory, i guess their lives are much like mine the little plastic castle, is a surprise every time -> little plastic castle people talk about my image, like i come in two dimensions like lipstick is a sign of my declining mind like what i happen to be wearing the day, that someone takes my picture is my new statement for all of womankind -> little plastic castle and i keep hearing that same damn song everywhere i go maybe i should put a bucket over my head and a marshmellow in each ear, and stumble around for another dumb-numb week for another hum drum hit song to appear -> fuel maybe you can keep me from ever being happy, but you're not gonna stop me from having fun -> gravel when i look around, i think this, this is good enough, and i try to laugh at whatever life brings, cuz when i look down, i just miss all the good stuff when i look up, i just trip over things -> as is you were always half crazy, now look at you baby you make about as much sense as a nursery rhyme love is a piano dropped out a four story window and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time -> two little girls don't even bother trying, to say something clever, clever is as clever does no matter what it says, i'm looking for a sign, says you're for real this time -> deep dish i always looked into your glasses, like a cat looks into a fish tank but all i could ever see, was the specter of me reflected i want a monument of friendship, that we never had erected -> loom yeah, i would like to perfect the art, of being studiously aloof like life is just a boring chore, and i am living proof -> pixie i'm going to go ahead and go boldly because a little bird told me that jumping is easy, that falling is fun up until you hit the sidewalk, shivering and stunned -> swan dive sitting in my glasshouse, while your ghost is sleeping down the hall watching the little birds fly, kamikaze missions into the walls think i'm gonna stay in today, sit on my couch and watch them fall -> glass house so many sheep i quit counting sleepless and embarrassed about the way that i feel -> independance day we lie in out beds, and our graves, unable to save ourselves from the quaint tragedies we invent, and then undo from the stupid circumstances we slalomed through -> pulse # album up up up up up up i ran away with the circus, 'cause there's still some honest work left, for bearded ladies, but it's not the same goin' town to town, since they put everyone in jail 'cept, the cleavers and the bradys -> tis of thee virtue is relative at best there's nothing worse than a sunset when you're driving due west -> virtue i take offense to the fact, that you're so hell bent you try to tell me this world, just isn't beautiful enough? ... i mean, what makes you so lavish that you can afford to spend ever sober moment feeling angry and bored -> come away she says, i've got a darkness that i have to feed i got a sadness that grows up around like a weed and i'm not hurting anyone, i'm just spiraling in and then she closes her eyes, and hears the song begin again -> jukebox 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 -> angel food she taught me how to wage 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 of getting by that got my father through -> angry any more so i took a deep breath and became, the white girl with the hair and you sat right beside me, while everybody stared -> everest she's trying to sing just enough, so that the air around her moves and make music like mercy, that gives what it is, and has nothing to prove -> up up up up up up it's not so much that we got closer, it's that her face just got bigger and by the time it was filling up my whole view i figured my face had gotten bigger too -> know now then smoke is snow is ash are leaves that blow through the air aloft -> trickle down and the man broke into a smile, like he was breaking into song and he was broken and smiling and I was singing along -> hat shaped hat # album to the teeth if i hear one more time, about a fools right to his tools of rage i'm gonna take all my friends, and i'm going to move to canada and we're going to die of old age -> to the teeth i think of your letters as love letters, which is how i think of songs in that it is the writing of these things, that tend to carry us along -> soft shoulder do you ever have that dream, when you open your mouth and you try to scream, but you cant make a sound -> wish i may it's about freedom, it's about faking there's an art to the laughter, there's a science and there's a lot of love and compliance -> freakshow she had a suitcase, full of bungles and near misses and she was swinging, through a jungle of last calls and first kisses -> going once did the hate filled want to build bunkers, in your beautiful red earth they want to build them in our shiny white snow -> hello birmingham you took the air, you took the time, you were fed and you were free now you'd better put some beauty back, while you got the energy -> back back back 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 -> swing 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? -> carry you around every other song someones trying to write, angels into the world every grace every ace every near miss, every decent kiss by a pretty girl -> cloud blood i got me a white bread sandwich, with some shredded lettuce and i got me a ringside view, for my quaint little fetish -> the arrival's gate it's a narrow margin, just room enough for regret in the inch and a half between hey, how ya been? and can i kiss you yet? -> providence i know this song, with this one really killer line i don't remember it exactly, but it slays me everytime -> i know this bar # album revelling i show up steady, ready and proud and i find i've forgotten how to talk out loud -> ain't that the way 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 -> o.k. 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 -> garden of simple then she is wet behind the ears and wafting down the avenue pre-rush hour, post-rain shower stillness seeping upwards like steam -> tamburitza lingua 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 -> marrow i can't believe you let the moral go by while you were soaking in the product placement -> marrow i'm a good kisser, and you're a fast learner and that kinda thing could float us, for a pretty long time then one day you'd realize, you've memorized my phone number and you'll call it and find, it's a disconnected line -> marrow i'm trying to feel my way around a book of promises written in braille -> heartbreak even 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 -> kazoointoit what do you want from this lifetime? how does your story line flow? when you finally get to the punch line, where will the applause sign go? -> what how when where (why who) joy, it has its own justice, and dreams are languid and lawless and everything bows to beauty when it is fierce and when it is flawless -> fierce flawless 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 -> rock paper scissors # album reckoning 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 -> your next bold move and what is life but reckoning and, you know you are still the song i sing to myself when i'm alone -> reckoning 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 -> so what then suddenly 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 you walk through my walls, like a ghost on tv, you penetrate me -> grey so we're led by denial like lambs to the slaughter serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water and the old farm road's a four-lane that leads to the mall and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall -> subdivison 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 -> old old song 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 -> sick of me 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 -> school night 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 -> school night # girls singing night cuz take away our playstations, and we are a third world nation under the thumb of some blue blood royal son who stole the oval office and that phony election -> self evident # album evolve what is a camera but a box of light? what is a guitar but a box of sound? -> promised land we took down all the pictures and then we took down all the walls packed up our expectations and piled em up in the hall yeah we bagged our future and kicked it to the curb and then we stood there unencumbered and we stood there undeterred cuz we were done clinging to the things we were afraid to lose -> in the way the animal i am knows very well that nature is our teacher and our mother and god is just another story that we tell -> icarus the pouring rain is no place for a bicycle ride try to hit the breaks and you slide and you slide and you slide -> slide and there's this moth outside my kitchen door she's bonkers for that bare bulb flying round in circles bashing in her exoskull and out in the woods she navigates fine by the moon but get her around a light bulb and she's doomed -> evolve i got more and more to do, i got less and less to prove it took me too long to realize that i don't take good pictures cuz i have the kind of beauty that moves -> evolve do you split the rent there with all your secrets or do you just pretend to all your friends they're uninvited guests -> shrug this vague little smile is my all-purpose expression the meaning of which i will leave to your discretion -> phase situated slightly outside society at odds with its odd offerings i bet you're teetering on the edge of sobriety just to alleviate a few things... -> here for now i'm always trying to get there i never really get there to that quiet place where i accept myself instead i'm deep inside some high school locker room no clothing popping the zits of my self loathing -> second intermission we start out sugared up on kool-aid and manifest destiny and we memorize all the president's names like little trained monkeys and then we're spit into the world so many spinny-eyed t.v. junkies incapable of unravelling the military industrial mystery preemptively pacified with history book history and i've bin around the world now and i can see this about america the mind control is steep here, man the myopia is deep here -> serpentine # album educated guess plus i dream in skin scented sentences of a stronger faster fiercer you and to each noun, verb and predicate i dedicate a vivid hue but you ain't done too well getting past your permanent pastel -> educated guess i am an all powerful amazon warrior not just some sniveling girl so no matter what i think i need you know i can't possibly have a need in this world -> origami we do a whole lotta laughin at the shyness that surrounds us i do a whole lotta lookin somewhere else i don't need to look no, i can just feel you besides every time i see you it just forces me to look at myself -> bliss like this real is real regardless of what you try to say or say away real is real relentless while words distract and dismay words that change their tune though the story remains the same words that fill me quickly and then are slow to drain -> the true story of what was but i learned a lot at my own funeral and i knew you'd be the death of me so i guess that's the price i pay -> bodily the answer to each moment must be yes and the question: can you live with that? becomes the test -> you each time more and more there is this animal looking out through my eyes ... at america the drastic that isolated geographic that's become infested with millionaires -> animal people, we are standing at ground zero of the feminist revolution yeah, it was an inside job stoic and sly ... why can't all decent men and women call themselves feminists? out of respect for those who fought for this -> grand canyon i know my mind is made of matter but i need to know exactly what is the matter at it's core? because my heart is just a muscle and simply put, it's sore -> rain check legs and arms akimbo like the high pitched body of a jumper waiting for her chalk outline finally at rest -> akimbo i hated to pop the bubble of me and you but it only held enough oxygen for a trip or two -> bubble # album knuckle down i swear some stuff you just see better from further away and i think i communicate best now, the less i say and i can't dance if the band can't play -> knuckle down there's never been an endeavor so strange as trying to slow the blood in my veins to keep my face blank, as a stone that just sank until not a ripple remains -> studying stones for once i had the balls to call it, just call it but a lesson must be lived, in order to be learned and the clarity to see and stop this now that is what i've earned -> manhole you're doing your thing, and i am doing mine, speaking words more a formality, cuz we can feel we, are of one mind -> sunday morning you were my modulation, so that's what you will always be we took each other higher, we set each other free course, neither of us were wearing helmets, and our blood was just everywhere and when the morphine kicked in later the censors threw their hands up in despair -> modulation i threw myself a little role reversal and followed you home just dying to be chewed, the dog was chosen by the bone -> seeing eye dog you gotta crawl through the desert, between when you hear it and when you can play it with your hands just to rendezvous with whoever you are, when you finally understand -> lag time however invincible you imagine yourself to be you are wrong -> parameters by the time we'd come full circle, we knew exactly what to do just keep looking at the triangle, instead of what it's pointing to -> callous teach myself to smile and stop and talk, to a whole other color kid teach myself to be new in an instant like the truth is accessible at any time teach myself it's never really one or the other there's a paradox in every paradigm -> paradigm but my job here, is not to deliver you but to hold a mirror, till you see how -> minerva if you should happen to see my light, you can stop and ring my bell i'm just sittin here in this sty, strewn with half written songs taking one breath at a time, nothin much going on -> recoil