1. |
Rise
06:17
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near death
near miss
you got arrested
I almost drowned
he got himself out of the smallest hole
all the way down there on the ground
Baghdad lit up a green gold
beat up by bullies
with bombs generations old
George Bush is as evil as Sadaam
it takes one to know one
and the screen screams on and on
about Iraqi liberation
all these puppets pronouncing protesters
only a thousand in Times Square
thousand what
cops
programmed by you
Big Brother or Big Dad
were Jeb and Bloomberg in there too
try to not let people walk down Broadway
the road our ancestors laid in the first place
trains mysteriously slow
making it impossible
nearly impossible to go
gather with each other
no they'd rather kill mothers
who give birth to brown babies
stage some international foil
while all our blood becomes their oil
don't dare me to rise cuz I'll rise
I'm facing down now
aircraft can't call to ground now
I feel halfway from my death
and it's my surest breath yet
cuz I'm not the only one dead tonight
your bombs they light up the night
you're just on that screen all smug
your hands held tight like a taking hug
like you're just waiting for daddy's handout
the one he made off raping nations of people
if I met you I'd smack you across your face
I'd say wake up
we didn't want you here in the first place
don't dare me to rise cuz I'll rise
I'm halfway down now
wrapping some white light around now
the plane screams through the sky
like innocents before they die
it's not war
it's genocide
just victims of your little boy games
in this breath I write to say
cuz revolution rolls through us
it takes follow through and talk
it takes agreeing to walk what we walk
live to preach listen glean glisten
pave poems from disaster
make all to all a vaster
possibility for our relations
it's hand to hand Juliet said
and I want to add mouth to mouth
and do to do
cuz we could all plant gardens
and season our truth
live like take back this land
each have some soil on hand
to make things grow
dare us to rise cuz we'll rise
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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2. |
Get Together
01:27
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Every day, it's conversation same
Talk of cash, like crack into veins
America's on suicide watch
and Bush is it's ledge
This lane is faster
this sun and sky vaster
than any push
any edge
These clouds hang over
an economy built on rage
when are we
when are we
not gonna be slaves
This coffee smells like candy
these pills can really come in handy
just keep us speeding along
these roads that are paved over songs
The guardrails make a rhythm
if you blur your eyes to it
This thistle sticks around
even though our gas all over it
Look at that incredible blue
lift your eyes higher than the billboards do
Remember the glow like it's in your bones
Remember the fight like those puffs of white
That conflict cumulus
can have its purpose
but don't forget to taper off when you can
Stand up straight
Don't imitate
and don't feed the man
Let's unhook from war
let's keep each other
instead of score
Let's get together
under all this weather
whether they like it
or not
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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3. |
Cat's Kills
03:38
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one thing I love about you
is you're not all strip malls
trees stand still
on the other side of you
and some of us can get there to breathe them
when all old hope is gone
I love that you're holding me now
in this time of my needlepoint healing
I'm sewing up the know I know
and the flow I flow
hemming out the blow by blow
of you--oh oh
those Cat's Kills
those fierce hills
those Cat's Kills
those fierce hills
Home I wanna know you
home I wanna know you
these bones hold under you
are tired now from your concrete
where my whole life is minus what we are
my whole life some unknown star
those Cat's Kills
those fierce hills
those Cat's Kills
those fierce hills
my whole life is minus what we are
my whole life some unknown star
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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4. |
My Clit
01:25
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My Clit is a Bitch
the whole Church and State
sticks to it
why do I have to wait
to get off
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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5. |
Red Roof In
04:21
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Every time i focus my view
Every time my camera zooms
I get this commercial by you
Ubiquitous you
Everywhere wears the badge of ads of you
You oh country sold out to capital
Shit, you dress my friends in it
The lens i view it with
The invisible space in the air
The soundwaves cast
Your insipid glare
I’m under your red roof inn
Your murder marketing system
Calling it Christian
Christ was a freak like me
You think he’d be down
With all the forests being paved with his name
Or some war being waged with his fame
Or he wasn’t getting it on with Mary or Jane
Just cuz they killed him don’t kill me
Don’t go kill a bunch of people back in Iraq
Then put that fish up
next to your “W in ‘04” flag
Follow this asshole dictator
Daddy’s little imitator
Give him your money your love and your veins
If christ died for my sins
He died in revolution
The one we’re trying to make
So stop trying to take
My view My true My ocean blue
Anyway i was trying to say
That somehow you just can’t stop our joy
You just can’t stop our basic need for people-ness
It springs up in the craziest cracks
And we are finding our roots now
We have to fight just to keep our space
We are finding our roots now
We will fight to keep our space
In the race and the pace
Of the land over take
In the race and the pace
Of the land over take
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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6. |
Copying Me
01:48
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Are you copying me?
Should I be covering something up?
Is this all gonna go up or is gonna come down?
Am I just sitting in Union Square
becoming a statue for the rats?
Is that little one stuck
or is he finding what he wants?
Am I just killing my throat
sucking down cigarettes like they're medicine
spitting out songs like glass
it hurts to feel in the well
of Giuliani's helicopters
spraying for mosquitos
Is that what I'm sitting here sucking down
the exhaust fumes of politics?
Is my body really a mess
holding on to what has happened there?
Is she standing up or tired?
Is she here or totally wired?
Are you joking with the inside of me
typing me letters from across the sea
are you a whore whore's wanna be
masculine side of soul?
She's gone now
she's in the institution
Will what comes trickling out
resemble a stream?
Will she flow with nuclear waste
of pharmaceutical haste
will what ever-after she tastes
be filling?
I'm filling up with dreams
I'm just bursting at the seams
wanting to offer myself up
to what the Goddesses are baking
Will you whisper to me
from the other life?
Will you try and map out
some sense to this strife?
Will you meet me in the park
to heavy down the dark?
Will you ride on my dashboard
in your turquoise bones?
Will you meow to me in your sleep?
Make the promises, we'll keep?
My legs are going numb now
from all this writing
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
credits
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7. |
Hope We Do
02:18
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Early plane and no one's talking
Had to talk myself onto the plane with all my baggage, as always
"My bass is not going under--the neck, the soft case"
The lady tells me it goes under or I don't fly
and I have one minute to decide
"Ok" i say
and before I can even start to think
she says "Ok I'm making the decision for you"
"I thought I had a whole one minute"
And our good-bye was just as fast
only one day in bed with you
then again I hit the gas
this time into air then road
with my always-heavy load
your body still all over me
The guy that took my bags
told you a 2 dollar tip was a rip
and after you left, I told him
How dare him, I am here to empower women
and he should be tipping ME
That hat I got you on your head
with the tag still coming out of it
waving me off before getting shoved off
by the dude in his badge and blinking light
Yesterday still waits for me
like an inspired melody to sing again
And what about my bass?
They wore the boss' face
They said they could get fined, fired
against the rules, we-could-show-you-the-manual
it's up to you, either comply or don't fly
with all these faces seated watching me
laptops heavy up top
plenty of room for the corporations
in the overhead baggage bins
ruling out the revolution that waits in this case
all padded from my friend
and how it all did end was:
the captain came out from the cockpit
told me he'd take it--
always the dude behind the door
has the power to be human
cuz the lower workers--the women and the fags,
they have to protect their little piece of pie
like they're being watched by the invisible eye
that did not build this world with them in mind
I thank everyone,
make my way to my plastic seat
turn on the fan for some chemicals to breathe
I love my work
I love you
I love this world I'm in
sometimes too
Need to change it though
Need to hold on to songs
like they're the hope we do
and I hope we do
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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8. |
Aileen Warnos
01:14
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You just had that whole system against you didn’t you
From your daddy to the johns
To the judges to the jury
To your jailors
To your jesus-drunk lawyer
They all raped you didn’t they
In their own systematic way
Did it all go down
in that imperialist hollywood kind of way
the deals went down in high high office
about your little hooker life
you were used by them
a little used hole
with such a fiery fierce soul
i saw it giving the finger
to all the fingers that had held you down
of course they killed you
the witch hunt never stops
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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9. |
Nana
00:19
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I tried to carve always
into that brick wall
after you waved me good-bye
told me not to cry
from your house
on Alfall road
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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10. |
I Wanna Do This
07:22
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i wanted to whisper something to you
i wanted to do all of this for you
i wanna do this for you
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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11. |
Pennsylvania
02:42
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I was so close to almost home
and my van springs a leak
by before this poem
The gages were having a freak out attack
and suddenly her purr was a smoker's hack
and it's fast, this life this track
and it's so slow when there's somewhere you're trying to go
Getting there on mechanics and faith
one thing breaks and boom--you're done
checking yourself in to the Howard Johnson
Opting for the fish sandwich, and 'hodgepodge' veggies
writing over paper paisley place-mats
And the TV blaring around the corner
in the smoky side of the bar
and me, apparently the only non-smoker
in the almost-closed side of Ho-Jos
"When you get caught between the moon and New York City"
that's coming out of the ceiling
and that IS crazy and that IS true
and trust me I'm not falling in love, I'm already there
and I was trying to GET there
My bed was only 6 more hours away
and now, a whole more day away
from my studio, from my love,
from my Brooklyn, 4 floors above
Just keep going, I tell my pen
and she does, even when
everything else stops, she goes
Only the Queen, I guess, really knows
Why I'm here, facing this fear
of girl alone on the side of the road
The salad bar is closed
and all my clothes smell like the road
which this time went on for 4 weeks
I was weak when I started that girlhood
That's where we get chased
and we learn how to make this face
to let them know we know our place
And I'm so not that.
I'm a witch with no hat.
I'm a bodacious brat
and I'm crying fat tears
under this Pennsylvania sky
the sunset looks so beautiful through them
My friend Lynee on the other end of my sell-out phone
California oozes out of her voice
and wraps its arms around me
And I'm just trying to find some veggies
Trying to peel them out from their deep-fried freeze
I hope this letting go really frees us
really sees us for who we are
See my car is broken down, but I'm not
My engine is perfectly hot
And so far there's not a drip I couldn't stop
Not a dick I couldn't top
So just remember that you, me, you
This could maybe stop you every now and then
But overall slow you? No--you know deep down what is true:
that poems keep going, and so can songs
You just have to let them be
You just have to let them belong
And no matter what
Music always moves
and Machines
Only sometimes do
Copyright 2004 Capital B Music (BMI)
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Bitch Los Angeles, California
The longstanding queer music icon Bitch makes witchy poet pop. She does it with violins and synthesizers, and the songs she writes are spectral, heartbreaking, political, and beautiful. "Bitchcraft" is like Joni Mitchell set to a click track, it’s queer Cyndi Lauper. It’s neon pink, in your face, ready to hex you with its brilliance. ... more
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