New Song in progress
4/11/2006
On Dean’s new couch with my laptop.
American Typewriter [Live Performer]
How does it feel when I look in your eyes from this stage,
my lungs pumping out this sound that starts in my belly?
‘Cause it should feel nice, and if it doesn’t,
you’re missing it ‘cause you’re used to watching the telly.
But I’m going to keep singing
and all of you can keep watching
thinking what you’re thinking
deciding if I’m “good” or “bad” or “interesting.”
Cut me up.
Find a compartment for me in your reality.
Call it “young hot singer songwriter”
Call it “overwrought”
You can call me anything in that head of yours
but could you stop?
Could you let yourself just be alive
near a live performer?
For just a moment
live your life that’s happening right now.
Not worry about who’s in your corner?
This is a live performance, people.
I am a live performer
I am alive in front of you
and I’ll live where and how I wanna.
And when I sing to you
with my soul stripped bare,
all I ask is that you meet my gaze
and smile back instead of showing me that blank stare.
Because I don’t do this for stardom,
I don’t do this for money,
I’m not interested in your beach in Waikiki,
I don’t care how sunny,
because I know that just over the hill from that
hotel shopping paradise on Oahu
lies miles and miles of poverty.
So all I can think to do
is to keep on singing and keep on looking into your eyes
because I know this is real
even if 9/11 wasn’t.
We’ve got to let ourselves feel
the terror of the Fertile Crescent.
When we chose slavery and domination
over cooperation and caring
raped the earth, divided the land
and called it “agrarian farming.”
But why do we need to line plants up into rows
butcher animals, split genes and all that other malarchy?
Why are we entitled to the throne at the top of this imaginary hierarchy?
You might say it’s because of our huge brains
our ability to communicate
our capacity to feel.
But dolphin’s brains are bigger
whales invented long-distance telecommunications
and the screams of baby cows are real.
So what gave us the idea,
what gives us the right.
And why don’t more of us raise our fists to fight?
Was that the apple of knowledge that Eve tasted?
The reason that since then we all need to get wasted?
Were we tossed out if the Garden when we stopped trying to share?
(I’m still singing to you with my soul laid bare.)
This is a live performance, people.
I am a live performer
I am alive in front of you
so let’s live where and how we wanna.
On Dean’s new couch with my laptop.
American Typewriter [Live Performer]
How does it feel when I look in your eyes from this stage,
my lungs pumping out this sound that starts in my belly?
‘Cause it should feel nice, and if it doesn’t,
you’re missing it ‘cause you’re used to watching the telly.
But I’m going to keep singing
and all of you can keep watching
thinking what you’re thinking
deciding if I’m “good” or “bad” or “interesting.”
Cut me up.
Find a compartment for me in your reality.
Call it “young hot singer songwriter”
Call it “overwrought”
You can call me anything in that head of yours
but could you stop?
Could you let yourself just be alive
near a live performer?
For just a moment
live your life that’s happening right now.
Not worry about who’s in your corner?
This is a live performance, people.
I am a live performer
I am alive in front of you
and I’ll live where and how I wanna.
And when I sing to you
with my soul stripped bare,
all I ask is that you meet my gaze
and smile back instead of showing me that blank stare.
Because I don’t do this for stardom,
I don’t do this for money,
I’m not interested in your beach in Waikiki,
I don’t care how sunny,
because I know that just over the hill from that
hotel shopping paradise on Oahu
lies miles and miles of poverty.
So all I can think to do
is to keep on singing and keep on looking into your eyes
because I know this is real
even if 9/11 wasn’t.
We’ve got to let ourselves feel
the terror of the Fertile Crescent.
When we chose slavery and domination
over cooperation and caring
raped the earth, divided the land
and called it “agrarian farming.”
But why do we need to line plants up into rows
butcher animals, split genes and all that other malarchy?
Why are we entitled to the throne at the top of this imaginary hierarchy?
You might say it’s because of our huge brains
our ability to communicate
our capacity to feel.
But dolphin’s brains are bigger
whales invented long-distance telecommunications
and the screams of baby cows are real.
So what gave us the idea,
what gives us the right.
And why don’t more of us raise our fists to fight?
Was that the apple of knowledge that Eve tasted?
The reason that since then we all need to get wasted?
Were we tossed out if the Garden when we stopped trying to share?
(I’m still singing to you with my soul laid bare.)
This is a live performance, people.
I am a live performer
I am alive in front of you
so let’s live where and how we wanna.