pavlov hits me with more bad news every time i answer the phone so i play and i sing and i just let it ring all day when i'm at home a defacto choice of macro or microcosmic melancholy but, baby, any way you slice it i'm thinkin i could just as soon use the time alone yes, the goons have gone global and the CEOs are shredding files and the democrans and the republicrats are flashing their toothy smiles and uncle tom is posing for a photo op with the oval office clan and uncle sam is rigging cockfights in the promised land and that knife you stuck in my back is still there it pinches a little when i sigh and moan and these days i'm thinkin i could just as soon use the time alone cuz all the wrong people have the power of suggestion and the freedom of the press is meaningless if nobody asks a question i mean causation by definition is such a complex compilation of factors that to even try to say why is to over simplify but that's a far cry isn't it dear? from acting like you're the only one there unrepentantly self centered and unfair enter all suckers scrambling for the scoop exit mr. eye contact who took his flirt and flew the coop but whatever no matter no fishin trips no fishin cuz mamma's officially out of commission and did i mention in there somewhere did i mention somewhere in there that i traded babe ruth? yes, i traded the only player that was bigger than the game and i can't even tell you why cuz you'd think i'm insane and that's the truth and the music industry mafia is pimping girl power sniping off their sharp shooter singles from their styrofoam towers and hip hop is tied up in the back room with a logo stuffed in its mouth cuz the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house but then i'm getting away from myself as i get closer and closer to home and the difference between you and me baby is i get fucked up when i'm alone and i must admit today my inner pessimist seems to have got the best of me 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 been around the world now and i can see this about america the mind control is steep here, man the myopia is deep here and behold those that try to expose the reality who really try to realize democracy are shot with rubber bullets and gassed off the streets while the global power brokers are kept clean and discrete behind a wall behind a moat and that is all that's all she wrote and my heart beats an sss o o o sss cuz folks just couldn't care care care less less less as long as every day is superbowl sunday and larger than life women in lingerie are pouting at us from every bus stop shelovesme shelovesmenot shelovesme shelovesmenot... and big government should not stand between a man and his money i mean "what's good for business is good for the country" our children still take that lie like communion the same old line the confederacy used on the union conjugate liberty into libertarian and medicate it associate it with deregulation privitization we won't even know we're slaves on a corporate plantation somebody say halleluja! somebody say damnation! cuz the profit system follows the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked makes it serpentine capitalism is the devil's wet dream so just give me my judy garland drugs and let me get back to work cuz the empire state building is the tallest building in new york and i always got the feeling you just liked to hear it fall off your tongue but i remember my name in your mouth and i don't think i was done hearing it close to my ear on a whisper's way to a moan but pavlov hits me with more bad news every time i answer the phone so i play and i sing and i just let it ring all day when i'm at home a defacto choice of macro or microcosmic melancholy but baby, any way you slice it i'm thinkin i could just as soon use the time alone
Ani DiFranco Lyrics brought to you by danah boyd since 1995