You think I wouldn’t have him
Unless I could have him by the balls
You think I just dish it out
You don’t think I take it at all
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

Well…

When you look at me
You see my purpose,
See my pride
You think I just saddle up my anger
And ride and ride and ride
You think I stand so firm
You think I sit so high on my trusty steed
Let me tell you
I’m usually face down on the ground
When there’s a stampede

I’m no heroine
At least, not last time I checked
I’m too easy to roll over
I’m too easy to wreck
I just write about
What I should have done
I just sing
What I wish I could say
And hope somewhere
Some woman hears my music
And it helps her through her day

‘Cause some guy designed
These shoes I use to walk around
Some big man’s business turns a profit
Every time I lay my money down
Some guy designed the room I’m standing in
Another built it with his own tools
Who says I like right angles?
These are not my laws
There are not my rules

I’m no heroine
I still answer to the other half of the race
I don’t fool myself
Like I fool you
I don’t have the power
We just don’t run this place
We just don’t run this place

Our father who art in a penthouse
Sits in his 37th floor suite
And swivels to gaze down
At the city he made me in
He allows me to stand and
Sollicit graffiti until
He needs the land I stand on
I in my darkened threshold
Am pawing through my pockets
The receipts, the bus schedules
The matchbook phone numbers
The urgent napkin poems
All of which laundering has rendered
Pulpy and strange
Loose change and a key
Ask me
Go ahead, ask me if I care
I got the answer here
I wrote it down somewhere
I just gotta find it
I just gotta find it

Somebody and their spraypaint got too close
Somebody came on too heavy
Now look at me made ugly
By the drooling letters
I was better off alone
Ain’t that the way it is
They don’t know the first thing
But you don’t know that
Until they take the first swing
My fingers are red and swollen from the cold
I’m getting bold in my old age
So go ahead, try the door
It doesn’t matter anymore
I know the weakhearted are strongwilled
And we are being kept alive
Until we’re killed
He’s up there
The ice is clinking in his glass
I don’t ask
I just empty my pockets and wait
It’s not fate
It’s just circumstance
I don’t fool myself with romance
I just live
Phone number to phone number
Dusting them against my thighs
In the warmth of my pockets
Which whisper history incessantly
Asking me where were you

I lower my eyes
Wishing I could cry more
And care less,
Yes it’s true,
I was trying to love someone again,
I was caught caring,
Bearing weight

But I love this city, this state
This country is too large
And whoever’s in charge up there
Had better take the elevator down
And put more than change in our cup
Or else we are coming up
Or else we are coming up

My breast is cradled
In the curve of my guitar
I’m breaking strings
And other things playing hard
No I’m not on the rag
But I’m not on the run
I am matching the big boys one for one
And I must admit,
I’m having myself some fun

Because the music business is still run by men
Like every business and everything
But we can sing like a sonofabitch
Make them twitch around their eyes
Make them apologize

He had a mean streak
Three miles wide
It was a long walk to the other side
She tried to get through it
Holding on to her smile
But he wasn’t worth the time it takes
To make that mistake
He just wasn’t worthwhile
She’s been under command of the wrong man
And she’ll give you everything
Except the upper hand
She was his mother, and his lover, and his wife
Now she wants the luxury of her own life

‘Cause the marriage business is still run by men
Like every business and every thing
But she can sing like a sonofabitch
Make him twitch around his eyes
Girl, make him apologize

They all want to lead the fight
And they know what they know all right
But there’s so much
They don’t understand
What about the other sex
What about the other hand
They only know what they’ve been told
And they’re well cast
But they don’t break the mold
And good sources are not enough
So she calls their bluff
Yeah, she calls their bluff

‘Cause the revolution business is still run by men
Like every business and everything
But we can sing like a sonofabitch
Make them twitch around their eyes
Until they realize they just don’t realize
Until they realize they just don’t realize

Your basic average super star
Is singing about justice
And peace
And love
And I am glaring at the radio,
Swearing
Saying that’s just what I was afraid of
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

But I will wait
Yes, I will wait for the truth

They think I make a big deal about nothing
But they still think I’m
Kinda cute
They joke about the status quo
To break the ice
Once the ice is broken
I hope they all fall through
‘Cause this is no joke to me
They don’t fool me
With their acts of sensitivity
They too shall pass
Just like everyone
Who’s only here for my ass

And I can’t wait
Oh I can’t wait til they get their due

Baby I’ve only got a minute
Baby I have to go
A minute is all my life
Will ever allow
Let’s grow old
And die together
Let’s do it now
Because you’ll do all the jobs
No one else will do
And you’ll step aside

And you will let me come through
You have all my respect
I’ll leave it here when I go
Maybe I never told you, baby
Maybe you don’t know

But maybe if we wait
If we wait things will improve
Maybe we just wait
And things will improve
You know, they’ve got to improve

Your basic average superstar
Is singing about justice
And peace
And love
And I am glaring at the radio
Swearing
Saying that’s just what I was afraid of
The system gives you just enough
To make you think that you see change
They’ll sing you right to sleep
And then they’ll screw you just the same

He says I know you have to go
You have gone before
We are fighting on two different fronts
Of the same war
But no matter what else
I will do
I will wait for you
I will wait for you

He caresses every bottle
Like it’s the first one he’s had
Saying
It ain’t love
But it ain’t bad
It’s the only reward
Bestowed upon me
And I have served faithfully

I can see he is scarred
From doing some hard time
But I let alone what is broken
‘Cause it isn’t mine
He strikes out at me
When I am within reach
Then he reaches for me
When I draw the line

Sometimes it seems like love
Is just a fancy word for compromise
You gotta read between the years
You gotta write between the lines
You gotta try to understand
The grandness of the man behind the petty crimes
And let him off easy sometimes

I have only just met
An old old friend
We’ve been walking around holding hands
I hope some day he can bend
As far as it takes to understand
And risk breaking open again
And risk breaking open again

I’m okay
If you get me at a good angle
And you’re okay
In the sort of light
And we don’t look
Like pages from a magazine
But that’s all right
That’s all right

I crashed your pickup truck
And then I had to drive it back home
I was crying
I was so scared
Of what you would do
Of what you would say
But you just started laughing
So I started laughing along
Saying, it looks a little rough
But it runs okay
It looks a little rough
But it runs good anyway

We get a little further from perfection
Each year on the road
I guess that’s what they call character
I guess that’s just the way it goes
Better to be dusty than polished
Like some store window mannequin
Why don’t you touch me where I’m rusty
Let me stain your hands

When you’re pretty as a picture
They pound down your door
But I’ve been offered love
In two dimensions before
And I know that it’s not all
It’s made out to be
Let’s show them how it’s done
Let’s do it all imperfectly
Let’s do it all imperfectly

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
And how to find my own way back home

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
It sounds like rockabye…
It sounds like rockabye…

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
Maybe somehow.
Maybe somehow.

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
Or you can make me stay
Or you can make me stay