Not a Pretty Girl
Album - 18 luglio 1995 - Debaser id 45818

you think you're not worthy
i'd have to say i agree
i'm not worthy of you
you're not worthy of me
which of us is deserving
look at the human race
the whole planet at arm's length
and we don't deserve this place

what good is a poker face
when you've got an open hand
i was supposed to be cool about this
yeah i remember cool was the plan
tried to keep it all under wraps
but the wraps kept going slack
i keep turning around
i keep coming back

give me your vertical
your horizontal line
i want to take each of them
bend them to fit mine
the world is too good for me
i am such a naughty girl
but when we're together
we're too good for this world

you think you're not worthy
i'd have to say i agree
i'm not worthy of you
you're not worthy of me
i'm not worthy of you
you aren't worthy of me...

tiptoeing through the used condoms
strewn on the piers
off the west side highway
sunset behind
the skyline of jersey
walking towards the water
with a fetus holding court in my gut
my body highjacked
my tits swollen and sore
the river has more colors at sunset
than my sock drawer ever dreamed of
i could wake up screaming sometimes
but i don't
i could step off the end of this pier but i got
shit to do
and an appointment on tuesday
to shed uninvited blood and tissue
i'll miss you i say
to the river to the water
to the son or daughter
i thought better of
i could fall in love
with jersey at sunset
but i leave the view to the rats
and tiptoe back.

fourteenth street and the garbage swirls like a cyclone
three o'clock in the afternoon and I am going home
F train is full of high school students
so much shouting
so much laughter
last night's underwear in my back pocket
sure sign of the morning after

take me home
take me home and leave me there
think I'm going to cry, I don't know why
think I'm going to sing myself a lullaby
feel free to listen
feel free to stare

I live in New York New York the city that never shuts up
in the daylight everything is so gory
you can hear snatches of stranger's sorry stories
and I moved there from buffalo but that's nothing
the TRICO plant moved to mexico
left my uncle standing out in the cold
said there's your last paycheck have fun growing old

take me home
take me home and leave me there
think I'm going to cry, I don't know why
think I'm going to sing myself a lullaby
feel free to listen
feel free to stare
rockabye baby
in the treetop
when the wind blows
cradle will rock
when the bough breaks
the cradle will fall
down will come baby
cradle and all

youth is beauty
money is beauty
hell, beauty is beauty sometimes
it's the luck of the draw
it's the natural law
it's a joke
it's a crime
I was bored
you were bored
it was a meeting of the minds
now it's three in the afternoon and I can't leave too soon
saying thank you, I had a nice time

take me home
take me home and leave me there
think I'm going to cry, I don't know why
think I'm going to sing myself a lullaby
feel free to listen
feel free to stare

maybe I'll live my whole life
just getting by
maybe I'll be discovered
maybe I'll be colonized
you could try to train me like a pet
you could try to teach me to behave
But I'll tell you, if I haven't learned it yet
you know,
I ain't gonna sit, I ain't gonna stay

take me home
take me home and leave me there
think I'm going to cry, I don't know why
think I'm going to sing myself a lullaby
feel free to listen
feel free to stare

Well the heat is so great
It plays tricks with the eye
It turns the road into water
Then from water to sky
And there's a crack in the concrete floor
That starts at the sink
Yea, there's a bathroom in the gas station
And I've locked myself in it to think

Back in the city
The sun bakes the trash on the curb
The men are pissing in doorways
And the rats are running in herds
And I've got a dream with your face in it
That scares me awake
I've put too much on my table
Now I've got too much at stake

And I might let you off easy
Yea I might lead you on
I might wait for you to look for me
And then I might be gone
There's where I've come from and where I'm going
And I am lost in between
I might go out to that phone booth
And leave a veiled invitation on your machine

And you'll stop me, won't you?
If you've heard this one before
Oh the one where I surprise you
By showing up at your front door
Saying, "Let's not ask what next
or how or why
I'm leaving in the morning
So let's not be shy"
Don't be shy

The door opens, the room winces
The housekeeper comes in without a warning
And I squint at the muscular motel lady
And say "Hey morning"
As she jumps her keys jingle
She leaves as quickly as she came in
And I roll over and taste the pillow with my grin
Well the sheets are twisted and damp
But the heat is so great
And I swear I can feel the mattress
Sinking underneath your weight
Boy your sleep is like a fever
And I'm glad when it ends
Oh the road flows like a river
And it pulls me round every bend

Stop me, won't you?
If you've heard this one before
Oh the one where I surprise you
By showing up at your front door
Saying, "Let's not ask what next
or how or why
I am leaving in the morning
So let's not be shy"
Don't be shy

Well the heat is so great
It plays tricks with the eye
It turns the road into water
Then from water to sky
And there's a crack in the concrete floor
It starts at the sink
There's a bathroom in the gas station
And I have locked myself in it to think

And you'll stop me, won't you?
If you've heard this one before
yeah the one where I surprise you
By showing up at your front door
Saying, "Let's not ask what next
or how or why
I am leaving in the morning
So let's not be shy"

You'll stop me, won't you?
If you've heard this one before
yeah the one where I surprise you
By showing up at your front door
Saying, "Let's not ask what next
how or why
I'm leaving in the morning
So let's not be shy"

Don't be shy
no dont be shy
no don't be shy
no don't be shy
come on fucker don't be shy

I'm sorry i didn't sound more excited on the phone
I'm sorry that after all these years
I've left you feeling unrequited and alone, brought you to tears
I guess i never loved you quite as well as the way you loved me
I guess that i'll never really be able to tell you how sorry
I am

I don't know what it is about you
I just know it's not what it was
I don't know why red fades before blue, it just does
And i don't know what it is about me
That i just can't keep still
I keep thinking someday i will make this all up to you
And maybe someday i will

I guess i never loved you quite as well
As the way you loved me
I guess i'll never really be able to tell you how sorry
I am
Sorry i am
Sorry i am
Sorry i am

the air comes off the ocean
the city smells fishy
the air is full of fish and mystery
whispering who, what, when
i am warning you i am weightless
and the wind is always shifting
so don't hang anything on me
if you ever want to see it again
i am telling you i'm different than you
think i am

and you can dangle your carrot
but i ain't gonna reach for it
cuz i need both my hands
to play my guitar
and life is a sleazy stranger
who looks vaguely familiar
flirting with a bimbo named disaster
at the end of the bar
and i am telling you that i am different
than you are

at night when you're asleep
self hatred's going to creep in
you can try to blame it on the devil
the one who's bed you sleep in
and don't tell me what they did to you
as though you had no choice
tell me, isn't that your picture?
isn't that your voice?
if you don't live what you sing about
your mirror is going to find out
oh yeah

i'd like to go to all the pretty parties
where all the pretty people go
and i ain't really all that pretty
but nobody will know
cuz everybody loves you
when you're a star
and nobody questions
what it takes to go that far
and life is a sleazy stranger
and this is his favorite bar

no i don't prefer obscurity
but i'm an idealistic girl
and i wouldn't work for you
no matter what you paid
and i may not be able
to change the whole fucking world
but i could be the million
that you never made
oh yeah

i could be the million that you never made
i could be the million that you'll never make
you're looking at the million that you'll never make

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you are gonna get hungry
And eat most of the words you just said

Both my parents taught me about good will
And I have done well by their names
Just the kindness I've lavished on strangers
Is more than I can explain
Still there's many who've turned out their porch lights
Just so I would think they were not home
And hid in the dark of their windows
'Til I'd passed and left them alone

God help you if you are an ugly girl
Course too pretty is also your doom
Cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
For the prettiest girl in the room
And god help you if you are a phoenix
And you dare to rise up from the ash
A thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
While you are just flying past

And I'll never try to give my life meaning
By demeaning you
And I would like to state for the record
I did everything that I could do
I'm not saying that I am a saint
I just don't want to live that way
No, I will never be a saint
But I will always say

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you might find you are starving
And eating all of the words that you said

i want somebody who sees the pointlessness
and still keeps their purpose in mind
i want somebody who has a tortured soul
some of the time
i want somebody who will either put out for me
or put me out of misery
or maybe just put it all to words
and make me say, you know
i never heard it put that way
make me say, what did you just say?
i want somebody who can hold my interest
hold it and never let it fall
someone who can flatten me with a kiss
that hits like a fist
or a sentence, that stops me like a brick wall
because if you hear me talking
listen to what i'm not saying
if you hear me playing guitar
listen to what i'm not playing
and don't ask me to put words
to all the spaces between notes
in fact if you have to ask, forget it
do and you'll regret it
i'm tired of being the interesting one
i'm tired of heving fun for two
just lay yourself on the line
and i might lay myself down by you
but don't sit behind your eyes
and wait for me to surprise you
i want somebody who can make me
scream until it's funny
give me a run for my money
i want someone who can
twist me up in knots
tell me, for the woman who has everything
what have you got?
i want someone who's not afraid of me
or anyone else
in other words i want someone
who's not afraid of themself

do you think i'm asking too much?

Our father who art in a penthouse
Sits in his 37th floor suite
And swivels to gaze down
At the city he made me in
He allows me to stand and
Sollicit graffiti until
He needs the land I stand on
I in my darkened threshold
Am pawing through my pockets
The receipts, the bus schedules
The matchbook phone numbers
The urgent napkin poems
All of which laundering has rendered
Pulpy and strange
Loose change and a key
Ask me
Go ahead, ask me if I care
I got the answer here
I wrote it down somewhere
I just gotta find it
I just gotta find it

Somebody and their spraypaint got too close
Somebody came on too heavy
Now look at me made ugly
By the drooling letters
I was better off alone
Ain't that the way it is
They don't know the first thing
But you don't know that
Until they take the first swing
My fingers are red and swollen from the cold
I'm getting bold in my old age
So go ahead, try the door
It doesn't matter anymore
I know the weakhearted are strongwilled
And we are being kept alive
Until we're killed
He's up there the ice
Is clinking in his glass
I don't ask
I just empty my pockets and wait
It's not fate
It's just circumstance
I don't fool myself with romance
I just live
Phone number to phone number
Dusting them against my thighs
In the warmth of my pockets
Which whisper history incessantly
Asking me
Where were you

I lower my eyes
Wishing I could cry more
And care less,
Yes it's true,
I was trying to love someone again,
I was caught caring,
Bearing weight

But I love this city, this state
This country is too large
And whoever's in charge up there
Had better take the elevator down
And put more than change in our cup
Or else we are coming up