Ani DiFranco › Lyrics › Serpentine

Pavlov hits me with more bad news
Every time I answer the phone
So I play and I sing and I just let it ring
All day when I'm at home

A de facto choice of macro
Or microcosmic melancholy
But, baby, any way you slice it
I'm thinkin' I could just as soon use the time alone

Yes, the goons have gone global
And the CEO's are shredding files
And the [unverified] and the republic rats
Are flashing their toothy smiles

And Uncle Tom is posing for a photo op with the Oval Office clan
And Uncle Sam is rigging cockfights in the Promised Land
And that knife you stuck in my back is still there
It pinches a little when I sigh and moan
And these days I'm thinkin' I could just as soon use the time alone

'Cuz all the wrong people have the power of suggestion
And the freedom of the press is meaningless
If nobody asks a question, I mean, causation by definition
Is such a complex compilation of factors

That to even try, to say why, is to oversimplify
But that's a far cry, isn't it, dear?
From acting like you're the only one there
Unrepentantly self-centered and unfair

Enter all suckers scrambling for the scoop
Exit Mr. Eye Contact who took his flirt and flew the coop
But whatever, no matter, no fishin' trips, no fishin'
'Cuz Mamma's officially out of commission

And did I mention in there somewhere
Did I mention somewhere in there that I traded Babe Ruth?
Yes, I traded the only player that was bigger than the game
And I can't even tell you why 'cuz you'd think I'm insane
And that's the truth

And the music industry mafia is pimping girl power
Sniping off their sharpshooter singles from their Styrofoam towers
And hip-hop is tied up in the back room with a logo stuffed in it's mouth
'Cuz the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house

But then I'm getting away from myself
As I get closer and closer to home
And these days I'm thinkin'
I could just as soon use the time alone

An' I must admit, today, my inner pessimist
Seems to have got the best of me
We start out sugared up on Kool-aid and manifest destiny
And we memorize all the president's names like little trained monkeys

And then we're spit into the world
So many spiny-eyed TV junkies
Incapable of unraveling the military industrial mystery
Preemptively pacified with history book history

An' I've been around the world now
And I can see this about America
The mind control is steep here, man
The myopia is deep here

And behold, those that try to expose the reality
Who really try to realize democracy
Are shot with rubber bullets and gassed off the streets
While the global power brokers are kept clean and discreet
Behind a wall, behind a moat and that is all, that's all she wrote

An' my heart beats an [unverified]
'Cuz folks just couldn't care, care, care, less, less, less
As long as every day is Super Bowl Sunday
And larger than life women in lingerie
Are pouting at us from every bus stop
She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not

And "Big government should not stand between a man and his money"
'Cuz "What's good for business is good for the country"
Our children still take that lie like communion
The same old line the confederacy used on the union

Conjugate liberty into libertarian and medicate it
Associate it with deregulation, privatization
We won't even know we're slaves on a corporate plantation
Somebody say hallelujah, somebody say damnation

'Cuz the profit system follows the path of least resistance
And the path of least resistance
Is what makes the river crooked
Makes it serpentine

Capitalism is the devil's wet dream
So just give me my Judy Garland drugs and let me get back to work
'Cuz the Empire State building is the tallest building in New York
And I always got the feeling you just liked to hear it fall off your tongue

But I remember my name in your mouth
And I don't think I was done hearing it close to my ear
On a whispers way to a moan
But Pavlov hits me with more bad news every time I answer the phone
So I play and I sing and I just let it ring all day when I'm at home

A de facto choice of macro or microcosmic melancholy
But, baby, any way you slice it
I'm thinkin' I could just as soon use
The time alone