Amy Ray Album

I hear the rock show winding down at the high school
Kids out on the sidewalk, waiting for a ride
All the punks and the queers and the freaks and the smokers
Feel like they'll be waiting for the rest of their lives

Alright I hear what you're saying to me
Alright I hear what I just can't do
But I got this spark I got to feed it something
Or put it out for good

The stadium lights were breaking through the bleachers
I spent all day pushing tissue roses into chicken wire
Hey S.G.A., I'm an overachiever of the wrong persuasion
A pep rally kid, a new gender nation with a new desire

Alright I hear what you're saying to me
Alright I hear what I just can't do
But I got this spark I got to feed it something
Or put it out for good

Rub up against it till you it gets inside you
Rub up against it till its understood
Those aren't your friends talking shit about you
We've had it bad, we're gonna make it good

Alright I hear what you're saying to me
(rub up against me till its alright)
Alright I hear what I just can't do
(rub up against me till its alright)
But we got this spark, we got to feed it something
(rub up against me and)

I fell for guys who tried to commit suicide,
With soft rock hair and blood shot eyes.
He tastes like Marlboro cigarettes, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups,
A Pepsi in his hand, getting off the school bus.

Films and drills and safety illustrations
The crushed cars of driver education

Now its tattooed girls with a past they can't remember,
Who pledged allegiance to a life of bending the curriculum.
She tastes like spring, there she goes again,
Drinking with the older guys, tripping by the lakeside.

Films and drills and safety illustrations
The crushed cars of driver education

When you were sweet sixteen, I was already mean and
Feeling bad for giving it up to the man just to make the scene.
Where were you, back when I had something to prove,
With the switchblade set and the church kids learning my moves?

I ran for miles through the suburbs of the seventies,
Pollen dust and Pixie sticks, kissing in the deep end
Of swimming pools before I knew what's in there.
We come into this life waterlogged and tender.

Films and drills and safety illustrations

You ride your John Deere down to the pond
Just to watch me struggle along.
You say you got your daddy's seed in you
And you think you're bored with anything there is to do with me.

You wipe your hands across your bare chest
And rub your fingers through your crew cut hair.
“Expelled from school,” you tell me with a grin,
“I copped a feel from an ex-girlfriend.”

I know you want to break the rules-
We were made by nature's fools.
And so you ride all day long, all by yourself,
‘Til you feel strong-

Strong enough to stay
Strong enough to be
Standing in the way
Of everything I see.

You wanna know why I had to go
Down to the baseball park to see you blow it.
All the balls just fall from your hands,
And your daddy asks me, When is he gonna be a man?”

I know you want to change the truth-
We were made by nature's fools.
So you ride all night long
With your boys in those muscle cars.
And you go down to the city
And laugh at the faggots
Until the girls look pretty and until you feel strong-

Strong enough to stay
Strong enough to be
Standing in the way
Of everything that you could see.

I'm just a magnet for the rural faggots.
They come and knock on my door
Just to find they're running out of time
To figure out what they come here for.

I know you want to know the truth
And I'm the dyke who will give it to you.
By this time next year
you'll know you're queer
It'll all be okay
It'll all be clear
And you'll run away from home
But not to be alone
And you'll go down to the city
Where the boys are pretty

And where you feel strong
Strong enough to stay
Strong enough to be

Come a little bit closer
Closer than you are
Cause anything worth it now
Is just gonna be hard
Come a little bit cleaner
Get a little bit mean
Just give me the honesty and
Give it back to me

When I know what's mine
I can put it aside
And give in

Don't give me a reason
Don't give me a break
Just give me the loneliness
Of my own mistakes
And if it falls like a judgment
On everything that we are
Then it's just useless
Something we should discard

What's yours what's mine
Lets put it aside
And give in

Are you afraid
Does it get in the way
Of everything that wants to last
Everything that wants to stay
With all your might
Could you put it aside

And give in
With all my might
I could never put you aside

Every time I go downtown I think I might find you around.
I take your picture just in case, anybody's seen-
A girl who's had her better days, just like the last place that you stayed,
Where I can see you tipping back the curtains, looking for me.

You say. “Baby do you have to go away
Just before the deal gets real sweet,
Just before my trouble finally pays off,
Can you cover for me?”

I see you coming down the hill.
You smile at me like I'm a worn out thrill,
As if I have some endless well of dignity.
You cut yourself like a high school kid-
I did it once, everybody did,
Just to feel the emptying of everything.

Just to watch it all go away,
Every time the deal gets real sweet,
Every time our trouble finally paid off.
We said, “Cover for me, cover for me.”

It's 2 years of depravity for every year of recovery,
And you'll lose eventually, if that's what you need.
Of all the friends that make me sad,
You're the one I just can't have-
All the numbers that you left me,
They just ring and ring.

I said, “Baby do you have to go away,
Just before the deal gets real sweet,
Just before my trouble finally pays off,
Can't you cover for me, like I covered for you,

In a sea of white faces
I heard the latest version of The Clash.
Still no ticket for the races,
And the sisters still get the shaft.
We got a punk rock problem
I'm tired of playing shirts and skins here.
How do we sing against the system
When we're a main offender?

Put it in a blender and let me get the hang
Of how it fits together
And how we came to be.

I'm a child
Of the M to M Program.
Bus em out to the suburbs,
But we never got to know em.
I had a sex education
Without a word for my gender
All these half-hearted tries-

Put em in a blender.
Let me get the hang of
How we can fit together
And still keep our identity.

Now the kids are hip hip hopping,
And everybody's co-opting.
The straight girls are slumming it
At The Suicide Queers' gig.
Yeah, we're all assimilatin',
But we're still segregated.
And its all for the market man,
He says ”Put em in a blender and
See where the money lands.”

Put em in a blender and let them get the hang
Of thinking that they've been here

I'm a Sober Girl, not for any good reason
I found myself on this road I'm on
It felt a lot like treason
To my last girlfriends, who could never understand
When it comes to love, I wanted purity.

I felt the loneliness of the world, in the city so I got out of there
I found myself at the end of a long dirt road
It felt a lot like nowhere
To my last girlfriends, who could never understand
When it comes to life, I wanted purity.

When I was young, in every camptown song I sung
I was aching just to be
With someone, who could lay me down where the rivers run
Who was able, who was free.

Free of this manmade world and all the bargains we made with fear
That slowly whittle us down to nothing
It felt a lot like despair
But I found someone, who was still standing when it was done
And with the purest heart, she said these words to me-

When I was young, in every camptown song I sung
I was aching just to be
With someone, who could lay me down where the rivers run.

Putting pennies on the track, shiny and flat,
It was the best we could be, sexy and free.
I grow away from myself with each passing bell-
With all these new accessories, I just stumble and bleed.

For a moment I feel the coldness
At the end of a Fall day.
I put my hands down deep in my pockets
As my body awakes.

So I'm heading back to school all brilliant and new,
Trying hard to fit in and not to walk like a man.
A girl that I never noticed asked me to hold this-
A secret too hard to tell and I never will.

For a moment I feel the coldness
Of everything that's been taken away.
I put the phone back in the cradle,
I can't make this okay.

The damage she'll survive
But damn the sacrifice of
Every life we've lost
Damn all the cost of the assault

You tied a knot and you dared me,
The stem of a cherry,
To find my own humanity
And just let it breathe.

Hold my head up in this moment
Keep myself from fading away.
Pull my hands out of pockets and

She comes down to Georgia to dance across my kitchen floor,
Leavin' black marks on linoleum, a country song on the radio.
I am just a rodeo calf with tender feet and sewn on horns and
Love is a kindness that I've never known before,
I've never known before.

She say's “I'm bound to Carolina to join the kids in 'Truth or Dare'.”
And she laughs and says its just a game when I tell her that I'm scared.
I am just a dog waitin' at the kitchen door,
Love is a kindness that I've never known before,
I've never known before.

Make it last, make it stay
Can you hold on long enough to make this pay.

She said,” My daddy was a grifter and I was in my momma's way,
So I drifted for a while, because I could not stand to stay.”
And she said, “Love is a kindness that I've never understood.”
I said, “I'll give it to you willingly, its something you deserve,
Its something you deserve.”

And I'll make it last, I'll make it stay.
If you can hold on long enough I can make this pay.

'Cause I am just a calf with tender feet and sewn on horns,

When you march stand up straight.
When you fill the world with hate
Step in time with your kind and
Let it ring

When you speak against me
Would you bring your family
Say it loud pass it down and
Let it ring

Let it ring to Jesus 'cause he sure'd be proud of you
You made fear an institution and it got the best of you
Let it ring in the name of the one that set you free
Let it ring

As I wander through this valley
In the shadow of my doubting
I will not be discounted
So let it ring

You can cite the need for wars
Call us infidels or whores
Either way we'll be your neighbor
So let it ring

Let it ring
in the name of the man that set you free
Let it ring

And the strife will make me stronger
As my maker leads me onward
I'll be marching in that number
So let it ring

I'm gonna let it ring to Jesus
Cause I know he loves me too
And I get down on my knees and I pray the same as you
Let it ring, let it ring
'Cause one day we'll all be free