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Self Evident (live) - Ani DiFranco



     
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Self Evident (live) Lyrics


Yes,
Us people are just poems
We're ninety percent metaphor
With a leanness of meaning
Approaching hyper-distillation
And once upon a time
We were moonshine
Rushing down the throat of a giraffe
Yes, rushing down the long hallway
Despite what the p.a. announcement says
Yes, rushing down the long hall
Down the long stairs
In a building so tall
That it will always be there
Yes, it's part of a pair
There on the bow of Noah's ark
The most prestigious couple
Just kickin' back parked

Against a perfectly blue sky
On a morning beatific
In its Indian summer breeze
On the day that America
Fell to its knees
After strutting around for a century
Without saying thank you
Or pleaseAnd the shock was subsonic
And the smoke was deafening
Between the setup and the punch line
Cause we were all on time for work that day
We all boarded that plane for to fly
And then while the fires were raging
We all climbed up on the window sill
And then we all held hands
And jumped into the skyAnd every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
And then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
And the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
Looked more like war than anything I've seen so far
So far
So far
So fierce and ingenious
A poetic specter so far gone
That every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
Over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on
And I'll tell you what, while we're at it
You can keep the pentagon
Keep the propaganda
Keep each and every tv
That's been trying to convince me
To participate
In some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution
Perpetuate retribution
Even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
Is still hanging in the air
And there's ash on our shoes
And there's ash in our hair
And there's a fine silt on every mantle
From hell's kitchen to Brooklyn
And the streets are full of stories
Sudden twists and near misses
And soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
With tales of narrowly averted disasters
And the whiskey is flowin'
Like never before
As all over the country
Folks just shake their heads
And pourSo here's a toast to all the folks that live in Palestine, Afghanistan,
Iraq, El SalvadorHere's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
Under the stone cold gaze of Mt. RushmoreHere's a toast to all those nurses and doctors
Who daily provide women with a choice
Who stand down a threat the size of Oklahoma City
Just to listen to a young woman's voiceHere's a toast to all the folks on death row right now
Awaiting the executioner's guillotine
Who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads
To find peace in the form of a dream, peace in the form of a dreamCause 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
I mean
It don't take a weatherman
To look around and see the weather
Jeb said he'd deliver Florida, folks
And boy did he everAnd we hold these truths to be self evident:
Number one, George W. Bush is not president
Number two, America is not a true democracy
Number three, the media is not fooling me
Cause I am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
I've got no room for a lie so verbose
I'm looking out over my whole human family
And I'm raising my glass in a toastHere's to our last drink of fossil fuels
May we vow to get off of this sauce
Shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
And find that train ticket we lost
Cause once upon a time the line followed the river
And peeked into all the backyards
And the laundry was waving
The graffiti was teasing us
From brick walls and bridges
We were rolling over ridges
Through valleys
Under stars
I dream of touring like Duke Ellington
In my own railroad car
I dream of waiting on the tall blond wooden benches
In a grand station aglow with grace
And then standing out on the platform
And feeling the air on my faceGive back the night its distant whistle
Give the darkness back its soul
Give the big oil companies the finger finally
And relearn how to rock-n-roll
Yes, the lessons are all around us and the truth is waiting there
So it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
And clear the air
Get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
Of someone else's desert
Put it back in its pants
And quit the hypocritical chants of
Freedom foreverCause when one lone phone rang
In two thousand and one
At ten after nine
On nine one one
Which is the number we all called
When that lone phone rang right off the wall
Right off our desk and down the long hall
Down the long stairs
In a building so tall
That the whole world turned
Just to watch it fallAnd while we're at it
Remember the first time around?
The bomb?
The Ryder truck?
The parking garage?
The princess that didn't even feel the pea?
Remember joking around in our apartment on Avenue D?Can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design
Following a fantastical reversal of the New York skyline?!It was a joke
At the time
And that was just a few years ago
So let the record show
That the FBI was all over that case
That the plot was obvious and in everybody's face
And scoping that scene
Religiously
The CIA
Or is it KGB?
Committing countless crimes against humanity
With this kind of eventuality
As its excuse
For abuse after expensive abuse
And it didn't have a clue
Look, another window to see through
Way up here
On the hundredth and fourth floor
Look
Another key
Another door
Ten percent literal
Ninety percent metaphor
Three thousand some poems disguised as people
On an almost too perfect day
Must be more than pawns
In some asshole's passion play
So now it's your job
And it's my job
To make it that way
To make sure they didn't die in vain
Ssh
Baby listen
Hear the train?
Songwriters
ANI DIFRANCOPublished by
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC Song Discussions is protected by U.S. Patent 9401941. Other patents pending.

Enjoy the lyrics !!!
Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco was born on September 23rd, 1970 from parents with Italian and Canadian backgrounds. Both her father, Dante, and her mother, Elisabeth, were architects. She grew up in Buffalo, N.Y. and played her first gigs at the age of nine, playing in local bars in her hometown. She attended the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts. She moved to New York City at 16 and in 1988 she made a demo which has become a highly sought-after fan item. She is now a prolific artist.

Ani’s lyrics focus, amongst other topics, on war, GLBT issues, sexual assault, the music industry and, recently, the joy of motherhood.
Early on, DiFranco saw how some talents were ignored while others were hyped up. Based on experiences in meeting with the industry she decided to stay independent and as a result she formed her own label: Righteous Babe Records(RBR among her followers). The label was formed in 1989, and a year later her self-titled debut hit the streets. From day one her popularity grew on a mouth to mouth basis. In 1991 her next relase "Not So Soft" came out, followed by yearly releases thereafter, with the exception of 2000, when she released only an EP called "Swing Set". This EP Includes a cover of Bob Dylan's "Hurricane".

Ani tours both with a band and as a solo artist. Her touring pace has often been extreme and in 2005-2006 she had to take a break from touring due to tendonitis. DiFranco's father died early in the summer of 2005; however, she continued her summer tour as a tribute to him. Ani received a Woman of Courage award at the 2006 NOW conference where she also announced that she was pregnant. On January 20th 2007, her daughter Petah Lucia DiFranco Napolitano was born. Ani Difranco gave birth in her home in Buffalo.

DiFranco has been toasted by the Buffalo News as the "Buffalo's leading lady of rock music." The News further said: "Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed various grassroots cultural and political organizations, supporting causes ranging from abortion rights to gay visibility."

Since 2003, Ani has been nominated four consecutive times for "Best Recording package" at the Grammy awards, one of which she won, in 2003 for "Evolve."

DiFranco's guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style, rapid fingerpicking and use of a plethora of alternate tunings. She delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation. Her lyrics, which often include alliteration, metaphor, word play and a more or less gentle irony, have also received praise for their sophistication. The song "Talkin' Mrs. DiFranco Blues," by Dan Bern, strings together some of the most memorable lines from DiFranco's early career for comic effects.

Although DiFranco's music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums. DiFranco has collaborated with a wide range of artists including pop musician Prince, folk musician Utah Phillips, funk and soul jazz musician Maceo Parker and rapper Corey Parker. She has used a variety of instruments and styles: brass instrumentation was prevalent in 1998's Little Plastic Castle, strings on the 1997 live album Living in Clip and 2004's Knuckle Down, and electronics and synths in 1999's To the Teeth and DiFranco's latest studio recording, Reprieve.

DiFranco herself noted that "folk music is not an acoustic guitar--that's not where the heart of it is. I use the word 'folk' in reference to punk music and rap music. It's an attitude, it's an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community. It's subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority."

The combination of personal and political is partially responsible for DiFranco's early popularity among politically active college students, some of whom set up fan pages on the web to document DiFranco's career as early as 1994. Because DiFranco's rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1990s was fueled mostly by personal contact through her many live shows and as said above the word was spread from a fan to their friends and so on rather than mainstream press, fans often expressed a feeling of community with each other.

DiFranco has expressed political views outside of her music. During the 2000 U.S. presidential election, she encouraged voting for Ralph Nader in non-battleground states. She supported Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 Democratic primaries.

DiFranco has occasionally joined with Prince in discussing publicly the problems associated with major record companies. DiFranco is openly proud of her label, which employs a number of people in her hometown of Buffalo. In a 1997 open letter to Ms. magazine she expressed displeasure that what she considers a way to ensure her own artistic freedom was seen by others solely in terms of its financial success. Her label has set a standard for other young female singer/song writers.This has not just made her an icon for independent music, but it has also helped establish her as a true feminist which also see the importance of feminism among men. In her poem Reprieve she states that "feminism ain´t about equality, it´s about reprieve".

DiFranco performed with Cyndi Lauper on "Sisters of Avalon", a track from Lauper's 2005 collection The Body Acoustic. She also performed with fellow folk singer Dar Williams on "Comfortably Numb", a Pink Floyd cover song from Williams' 2005 album, My Better Self.

Her most recent work Canon is a career retrospective that gives the listener access to all of her albums through a careful handpicked selection which includes recorded versions of classics such as "Shameless", "Both Hands" and "Overlap" were 3 of the new recorded song versons on Canon. Difranco re-recorded the songs together with Allison Miller on drums and Todd Sickafose on bass.

Together with Canon, she relased a poetry book with her own painting called "Verses."

Her latest album is called "Red Letter Year," released in late 2008. Just prior to its release, Difranco said the following about the CD: "I’m really excited. I have a new band I’m working with, and they’re all over it. Actually, there are a lot of people. I have more guests and friends and other artists involved this time around than I have in a long time. It’s fuckin’ sprawling, this record. I’ve been working on it for a while now, taking a little bit more time because I’m on baby time now. My pace is a little bit slower, which I think is great in terms of making records. I think it will benefit the end result"

A new album entitled "Which Side Are You On?" was released on January 17, 2012.

FULL DISCOGRAPHY:

Which Side Are You On?
January 2012

Red Letter Year
September 2008

Canon
2007

Reprieve
2006

Knuckle Down
2005

Educated Guess
2004

Evolve
2003

So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter
2002

Revelling / Reckoning
2001

To the Teeth
1999

up, up, up, up, up, up
1999

Little Plastic Castle
1998

Living in Clip
1997

Dilate
1996

Not a Pretty Girl
1995

Out of Range
1994

Like I Said
1993

Puddle Dive
1993

Imperfectly
1992

Not So Soft
1991

Ani DiFranco
1990






Swing Set
2000

Little Plastic Remixes (vinyl)
1999

More Joy, Less Shame
1996

Live at Babeville (DVD)
2008


Trust
(DVD only)
2004

Render
(DVD / VHS)
2002







peace not war vol. 2
2004

for the lady
2004

not in our name
2004

peace not war
2003

seeds: the songs of pete seeger, vol. 3

going driftless : an artist's tribute to greg brown
2002

til we outnumber 'em
2000

fellow workers
1999

where have all the flowers gone: the songs of pete seeger
1998

the past didn't go anywhere
1996







Hamburg, Germany - 10.18.07
2008

Boston - 11.10.06
2007
Carnegie Hall - 4.6.02
2006
Rome - 11.15.04
2005

Madison - 1.25.04
2005

Chicago - 1.17.04
2005


Boston - 11.16.03
2005
Portland - 4.27.04
2004
Sacramento - 10.25.03
2004
Atlanta - 10.9.03
2004




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Ani Difranco