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I Love My Country, By Which I Mean, I Am Indebted Joyfully, To All The People Throughout Its History, Who Have Fought The Government To Make Right, Where So Many Cunning Sons And Daughters, Our Foremothers And Forefathers, Came Singing Through Slaughter, Came Through Hell And High Water, So That We Could Stand Here, And Behold Breathlessly The Sight, How A Raging River Of Tears, Cut A Grand Canyon Of Light... Why Can't All Decent Men And Women, Call Themselves Feminists? Out Of Respect, For Those Who Fought For This...

-Ani DiFranco

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I Love My Country,

Ani DiFranco

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I Love My Country, By Which I Mean, I Am Indebted Joyfully, To All The People Throughout Its History, Who Have Fought The Government To Make Right, Where So Many Cunning Sons And Daughters, Our Foremothers And Forefathers, Came Singing Through Slaughter, Came Through Hell And High Water, So That We Could Stand Here, And Behold Breathlessly The Sight, How A Raging River Of Tears, Cut A Grand Canyon Of Light... Why Can't All Decent Men And Women, Call Themselves Feminists? Out Of Respect, For Those Who Fought For This...

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I Am Getting Nowhere With You And I Can't Let You Go And I Cant Get Through.

Goldfish Have No Memory, I Guess Their Lives Are Much Like Mine. And The Little Plastic Castle Is A Surprise Everytime.

Self-preservation Is A Full-time Occupation.

Self Preservation

I Don't Like My Language Watered Down, I Don't Like My Edges Rounded Off.

Before Katrina, You Didn't See Criticism Of The Bush Administration In The Media. Here They Are, Stealing Elections, Enacting Illegal Wars, Huge Crimes Against Humanity And Democracy, And You Didn't Even See Criticism. It Wasn't Until Katrina That People Started To Come Down On Them.

My Main Tactic Is To Focus On The People I Respect. The People I Think Are Great People. Do I Have Their Respect? Do I Have Their Support? If The Answer Is "yes," Then I'm Doing Ok.

I Just Don't Know Any Other Word Than "feminist" That Describes A Person Who Believes Women Are People.

People Need Something Or Someone To Fasten Themselves To In Order To Reassure Themselves That They Are Real.

Actually I Don't Know If Honesty Is A Strength Or Some Kind Of Weakness.

When I Look Around I Think This, This Is Good Enough; And I Laugh At Whatever Life Brings Because When I Look Down, I Just Miss All The Good Stuff And When I Look Up, I Just Trip Over Things.

Privilege Is A Headache, That You Don't Know That You Don't Have.

We Can't Afford To Do Anyone Harm Because We Owe Them Our Lives Each Breath Is Recycled From Someone Else's Lungs Our Enemies Are The Very Air In Disguise You Can Talk A Great Philosophy But If You Can't Be Kind To People Every Day It Doesn't Mean That Much To Me It's The Little Things You Do The Little Things You Say It's The Love You Give Along The Way

And I Try To Draw The Line But It Ends Up Running Down The Middle Of Me Most Of The Time.

Women Who Don't Control Their Own Reproductive Rights Are Not Free.

Reproductive Rights

I Think If We Can't Use The Word Feminist, If It's Some Kind Of Taboo Or Dirty Word, Or Means You're Ugly, Or You're Angry, Or You're Not Dateable [laughs], Then You've Just Reduced The Language By A Whole Concept.

But As Bad As I Am, I'm Proud Of The Fact That I'm Worse Than I Seem

Strangers Are Exciting, Their Mystery Never Ends. But, There's Nothing Like Looking At Your Own History In The Faces Of Your Friends.

Criticism Is Hard For Me But People Find Hard To Believe Because They Think I'm Very Tough, Very Strident, That I Tell Everybody Where To Get Off, And How. But I've Actually Got A Really Thin Skin. I Don't Know. It's Quite Pathetic. So, Yeah, It's Hard For Me To Take Criticism. But I Also Kind Of Have This Sense Of Humor On Overdrive, So I Don't Take Any Of It Seriously. So That Sort Of Saves Me, The Fact That I Think It's Just All Kind Of Funny.

My Feminism Has Evolved Way Beyond Self-empowerment And I See Feminism As A Path To Peace On Earth. The Fundamental Imbalance That Is Behind All Of The Other Social Diseases Is Patriarchy. I Do Believe. As Men And Women, Together, I Really Long To Feel My Society Evolve Its Understanding Since We're One Of The Leaders In The F-word. I Want Us To Grow Our Idea Of Feminism Collectively And Get Both Men And Women Involved In Undoing Patriarchy. It's Huge. It's A Huge Job.

It Don't Take A Weather Man To Look Around And See The Weather, Jeb Said He'd Deliver Florida Folks And Boy Did He Ever, And We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident Number One George W Bush Is Not President. Number Two America Isn't A True Democracy. And Number Three The Media Is Not Fooling Me.

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 Round, I Keep Coming Back.

I Can't Wait To Get Back To New York City Where At Least When I Walk Down The Streat, No One Ever Hesitates To Tell Me Exactly What They Think Of Me.

When You Grow Up Surrounded By Willful Ignorance, You Have To Believe That Mercy Has It's Own Country And That It's Round And Borderless.

How Come I Can Pick My Ears But Not My Nose?

I'm Sounding Out The Silence, Avoiding All The Words.

They Can Call Me Crazy If I Fail, All The Chance That I Need, Is One-in-a-million And They Can Call Me Brilliant If I Succeed.

Life Is A Sleazy Stranger, Who Looks Vaguely Familiar; Flirting With A Bimbo Named Disaster At The End Of The Bar.

Maybe We Are Both Good People Who've Done Some Bad Things.

We Negotiate With Chaos For Some Sense Of Satisfaction.

Time Is Not A Thing That's Ours To Lose.

What We All Have To Admit To Is That One Man Cannot Save Us. Unless We Start Energizing Ourselves, All Standing Behind Him With All Of The Force Of Our Collective Power Then We Can't Expect Mountains To Be Moved. And That Is Not Exactly Happening, We Are A Very Comfortable Population.

These Days I Keep A Journal, So I'm Constantly Sketching Down My Thoughts, Or Lines That Come To Me...ideas For Songs. And Then When I Have A Moment To Myself, I'll Sit Down With My Guitar And Open My Journal, And Start Kind Of Massaging Things Together, And See If A Song Takes Shape. Or Sometimes, I'll Just Be Hanging Out With My Guitar And Come Up With A Chord Progression Or A Lick, And That'll Sort Of Sit Around For A While Waiting To Marry Itself To Some Words. So It's Sort Of Haphazard And It's Like...junk Culture. I Go Around Finding Shiny Objects And I Glue Them Together Laughs.

You've Got Your Whole Life To Do Something, And That's Not Very Long. So Why Don't You Give Me A Call When You're Willing To Fight For What You Think Is Real, For What You Think Is Right.

My Writing Just Kind Of Exists Out There In The Air-it's All Sort Of Intended As Spoken, Or Sung, Word. So, To Commit Them To The Page...that Way Was Kind Of Intimidating To Me, Yet Intriguing, To Try To Reflect The Rhythms And Connotations And Emotions That You Can Deliver, Speaking-wise, On A Page.

God Forbid You Be An Ugly Girl, 'course Too Pretty Is Also Your Doom, 'cause Everyone Harbors A Secret Hatred For The Prettiest Girl In The Room.

Life Is A B Movie: It's Stupid And It's Strange, It's A Directionless Story, The Dialogue Is Lame, But In The 'he Said She Said' Sometimes There's Some Poetry, If You Turn Your Back Long Enough And Let It Happen Naturally.

Taken Out Of Context I Must Seem So Strange.

Maybe You Can Keep Me From Never Being Happy, But You're Not Going To Stop Me From Having Fun!

Fate Is Not Just Whose Cooking Smells Good, But Which Way The Wind Blows

The Minute My Child Was Born, I Was Reborn As A Feminist. It's So Incredible What Women Can Do... Birthing Naturally, As Most Women Do Around The Globe, Is A Superhuman Act. You Leave Behind The Comforts Of Being Human And Plunge Back Into Being An Animal.

The Bathroom Mirror Has Not Budged, The Woman Who Lives There Can Tell The Truth From The Stuff They Say And Looks Me In The Eye- Says Do You Prefer The Easy Way? No? Well Ok Then, Dont Cry.

When All You Can Think Of Is Your Own Personal Problems, You Have Nothing To Give To Your Society. If You're Trying To Figure Out Where Your Next Meal Is Coming From, You Can't Go March On Washington.

March On Washington

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

I Have Earned My Disillusionment.

Disillusionment

You've Already Put More Than Enough Energy Into Worry. That's All Women Have Been Allowed To Do, Historically.

I Think It Is Very Useful To Know Ourselves, But When We Start Naming And Labeling, That Is Dangerous, That Gets Problematic. It Negates That Things Are Always Changing. Besides, It's Hard To Pin A Label Onto Something That's Always Moving.

There's A Certain Window Of Time In The Middle Of The Night Out In Middle America Where There's No Bar Open And Nothing On Tv. If You Don't Want To Do Too Many Drugs, You Have To Start Bodily Mutilation.

I Really Have Been Enjoying Performing More Lately Than I Have In A Long Time And You Know, It's All About That Sort Of Centered Feeling That I Have Now. You Know, Thanks To, Not Just My Kid, But Her Father Before Her. You Know, I Have A Kind Of A Grounding Through Them That I Really Relish, And I Think Is Also Good For My Work, You Know.

When I Was Four Years Old They Tried To Test My Iq, They Showed Me This Picture Of Three Oranges And A Pear. They Asked Me Which One Is Different And Does Not Belong; They Taught Me Different Was Wrong.

Just Let Me Go, We Have To Be Able To Criticize What We Love, To Say What We Have To Say 'cause If You're Not Trying To Make Something Better, Then As Far As I Can Tell, You Are Just In The Way.

When Everything Else Seems Unclear, At Least I'll Know I Do It For The Joy It Brings.

It's Just Hard To Travel In The Shadow Of Regret. In Fact, It's So Hard That I Actually Haven't Left Yet.

While Out In Tv Nation, Under Darkening Skies, The Resistance Is Just Waiting To Be Organized.

And If There's Anything I Do It's Change And Grow. I'm Just A Living Being. Every Year Of My Life I Seem To Learn That Everything I Know Is Wrong.

Pop Stardom Is Not Very Compelling. I'm Much More Interested In A Relationship Between Performer And Audience That Is Of Equals. I Came Up Through Folk Music, And There's No Pomp And Circumstance To The Performance. There's No, Like, 'i'll Be The Rock Star, You Be The Adulating Fan.'

What Doesn't Bend, Breaks.

Patriarchy Is A Fundamental Imbalance Underlying Society And It's One We Rarely Address Because It's So Universal. But As I Get Older, I See That Peace Is A Product Of Balance.

Feel Free To Listen, Feel Free To Stare.

No One's Gonna Sympathize When We Crash, They'll Say You Hit What You Head For, You Get What You Ask.

I Don't Take Good Pictures 'cause I Have The Kind Of Beauty That Moves.

I Never Try To Imagine The Future. I Kinda Think It's A Waste Of Time. I Live In The Now.

The World Owes Us Nothing; We Owe Each Other The World.

I Walk Like I'm On A Mission 'cause That's The Way I Groove. I Got More And More To Do And Less And Less To Prove.

People Talk About My Image Like I Come In Two Dimensions, Like Lipstick Is A Sign Of My Declining Mind, Like What I Happen To Be Wearing The Day That Someone Takes My Picture Is My New Statement For All Womankind.

I Seriously Hate Pop Music And All Things Super-commercial.

I Was Blessed With A Birth And A Death, And I Guess I Just Want Some Say In Between.

You're Trying To Fight Gravity On A Planet That Insists That Love Is Like Falling, And Falling Is Like This.

Up Up Up Up Up Up Points The Spire Of The Steeple But God's Work Isn't Done By God It's Done By People

A Lesson Must Be Lived In Order To Be Learned And The Clarity To See And Stop This Now That Is What I've Earned

Emptiness Has Its Solace In That There's Nothing Left To Take.

Freedom And Democracy, That's The Word From Washington Every Day. Put America To Sleep With Warm Milk And Clichés, And People Are Expendable Along The Way.

I'm Recording Our History Now On The Bedroom Wall, And When We Leave The Landlord Will Come And Paint Over It All.

Art Is Why I Get Up In The Morning, But My Definition Ends There.

The Fundamental Imbalance That Is Behind All Of The Other Social Diseases Is Patriarchy.

I Like To Be An Inspiration And An Example Of The Idea That You Can Be Independent, And It's No Problem, And You Can Pay Your Rent, And It's Empowering, And It's Great. And That's True, But It Also Takes A Really Long Time, And You Have To Have A Lot Of Patience And A Lot Of Conviction In Why You Want To Remain Independent.

Lying In Bed, You Know, You Don't Seem So Tall.

First Decide What You Got To Do, Then Go Out And Do It. All We Can Do Is To See Each Other Through It.

Being A Parent Has Taught Me A Lot Of Things Already, You Know, Though It's Only Been A Year And Half, And Has Made Me Address Parts Of Myself That I Would Otherwise Live In Comfortable Denial Of, Or You Know And - You Know, For Instance, My Self-loathing.

I Use My Dress To Wipe Up My Drink, I Care Less And Less What People Think.

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 Fear That Donald Trump Will Continue To Be Followed Around By The Media In Its Totality As He Continues To Rail Against Hillary Clinton.

Outside Sleep's Open Window, Between The Drops Of Rain, History Is Writing A Recipe Book For Every Earthly Pain.

There Are So Many Things That We Have To Be Very Concerned About. But I Always Come Back To Feminism. People Look At Me Sideways Now And Are Like, "with Everything Going On, The Destruction Of The Environment, These Endless Wars, This Capitalism That Has A Stranglehold On Our Culture And Our World And You're Talking About Feminism Still?"

I Knew Naturally As A Child Not To Forfeit My Creativity To A World That's All Laid Out For Me. I'll Look At Everything Around Me And Vow To Keep In Mind That Alla This Is Just Someone's Idea. It Could Have Just As Well Been Mine.

We Are Wise, Wise Women. We Are Giggling Girls.

Mostly, I Stay Out Of Social Media Conversations. But Sometimes, They Hunt Me Down And Shoot At Me Anyway!

Someone's Got To Be Interested In How I Feel, Just Because I'm Here And I'm Real.

I Always Try And Stay One Step Ahead Of People, Not Looking Like I Looked Like Last Week, So I Can Be As Anonymous As Possible And Part Of It Is Just For Me. It Is Fun To Just Come Up With New And Bizarre Colors For Each Area Of Your Body And Things Like That, But There Are Some Parts Of It That I Just Keep Wanting To Negate Myself. I Hate Waking Up In The Morning And Recognizing The Woman In The Bathroom Mirror.

What I Like About Being Independent [in The Music Industry] Is That Anybody Who Does Play The Album On The Radio And Anybody Who Does Choose To Write In The Media Does So Because They Want To, Because They Like It Or Because They Find Something Interesting There, Not Because They Have To.

I Don't Need Anyone To Hold Me, I Can Hold My Own.

My Mother Was A Feminist, And She Gave Me Some Tools Of Self-possession And Self-empowerment, But Now That I Have Lived Here For Forty-three Years, It's, Like, Whoa, There Is Just So Much More To Do, Other Than Become Myself. I'm Still Talking About It. I Still Drop The P-word, "patriarchy," On Unsuspecting People In Everyday Conversations.

We Have To Really Be Intentional Right Now About Holding The Media Accountable, And Taking Back The Discourse And Terms Of Discussion. It's Been Hijacked.

Love Is A Piano Dropped From A Fourth Story Window, And You Were In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time.

I'm An Atheist How Unfortunate It Is To Assign Responsibility To The Higher Up For Justice Amongst People.

You Can't Start With Imbalance And End With Peace, Be That In Your Own Body, In An Ecosystem Or Between A Government And Its People. What We Need To Strive For Is Not Perfection, But Balance.

The Scary Truth Is, You Have To Scratch Some Veneer Off To Gauge Where The Moral Fiber Really Is In Certain Pockets Of Society. It's Raw. It's Scary. But It Gives Us A Place To Work With.

Science Chases Money, And Money Chases Its Tail, And The Best Minds Of My Generation Cannot Make Bail.

I'm Searching, As We All Are, For Ways To Feel Good About Myself. Certainly, Looking In The Mirror Doesn't Do It!

Looking In The Mirror

I See A Lot Of Young Female Performers Who Do Not Call Themselves Feminist, But Would Certainly Believe In Their Own Right To Self-determination, And Wouldn't Want Anybody To Stop Them From Becoming Themselves. They Just Refuse To Recognize The Relationship Between Their Lives And Those Of Other Women, Or Feel Any Solidarity There.

I Always Wanted To Be Commander-in-chief Of My One-woman Army, But I Can Envision The Mediocrity Of My Finest Hour.

And I Was Shocked, To See The Mistakes Of Each Generation, Will Just Fade Like A Radio Station, If You Drive Out Of Range...

If You Think You Know What I'm Doing Wrong Well You're Gonna Have To Get In Line.

They See Me As A Symbol, And Not A Human Being. That Way They Can Kill Me, Say It’s Not Murder It’s A Metaphor.

I've Been Collecting Some More High-end Guitars. I Have An Old Martin D28 From The '60s, A Beautiful, Classic Martin That I Know I Played On 'mariachi.'

We Get A Little Further From Perfection, Each Year On The Road, I Guess That's What They Call Character, I Guess That's Just The Way It Goes, Better To Be Dusty Than Polished, Like Some Store Window Mannequin, Why Don't You Touch Me Where I'm Rusty, Let Me Stain Your Hands

Every Time I Say Something They Find Hard To Hear, They Chalk It Up To My Anger, And Never To Their Own Fear.

Having More Exposure Is Kind Of A Bittersweet Thing For Me, Honestly, Because It's Nice To Have A Little More Job Security In Life Now.

I Had A Little Bit Of Resistance To The Idea Of Taking Energy Away From My Work, And The Baby Comes Along And, Lo And Behold, That's Exactly What Happens.

And Half Of Learning To Play Is Learning What Not To Play And She's Learning The Spaces She Leaves Have Their Own Things To Say And She's Trying To Sing Just Enough So That The Air Around Her Moves And Make Music Like Mercy That Gives What It Is And Has Nothing To Prove She Crawls Out On A Limb And Begins To Build Her Home And It's Enough Just To Look Around And To Know That She's Not Alone Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Points The Spire Of The Steeple But God's Work Isn't Done By God It's Done By People

I Always Feel I Have To Take A Stand, And There's Always Someone On Hand To Hate Me For Standing There. I Always Feel I Have To Open My Mouth, And Every Time I Do, I Offend Someone, Somewhere.

Spring Is Super In The Supermarkets And The Strawberries Prance And Glow Never Mind That They're All Kinda Tart And Tasteless As Strawberries Go Meanwhile Wild Things Are Not For Sale Anymore Than They Are For Show So I'll Be Outside, In Love With The Kind Of Beauty It Takes More Than Eyes To Know

If You Don't Ask The Right Question, Every Answer Seems Wrong -

I Used To Be A Superhero; No One Could Touch Me, Not Even Myself. You Are Like A Phone Booth I Somehow Stumbled Into, And Now Look At Me - I Am Just Like Everybody Else.

I Basically Get Stereotyped A Lot In Terms Of Being A Girl And Writing 'chick' Music For Teenage Girls Or Something. I Think, If Anything, The Press Kind Of, Because Of My Gender And My Age, Tends To Kind Of Relegate My Work To This Sort Of Special-interest Group. It's Part Of The Cultural Dynamic, I Guess.

I Mean, Playing Music At Home And Writing And Hanging Out With My Guitar Is Kind Of Medicinal For Me, But When I Bring The Songs To People On Stage, It's Very Joyous.

Love Isn't Over When The Sheets Are Stained.

I'd Rather Suffer The Consequences Of Truth Than Of Silence.

I Am A Work In Progress Dressed In The Fabric Of A World Unfolding.

There Is No Alternative. A Democrat Is A Republican Is A Big Businessman, And We're All Consumers Instead Of Citizens. It Just Manifests In The Culture, In The Music, In The Art. I Feel A Little Panicky About It.

I Speak Without Reservation, From What I Know And Who I Am. I Do So With The Understanding That All People Should Have The Right To Offer Their Voices To The Chorus Whether The Result Is Harmony Or Dissonance. The Worldsong Is A Colorless Dirge Without The Differences That Distinguish Us, And It Is That Difference Which Should Be Celebrated Not Condemned.

If You’re Not Angry, Then You’re Just Stupid, You Don’t Care. How Else Can You React When Something’s So Unfair?

I Am Writing Graffiti On Your Body. I Am Drawing The Story Of How Hard We Tried.

Patriarchy Is Like The Elephant In The Room That We Don't Talk About, But How Could It Not Affect The Planet Radically When It's The Superstructure Of Human Society?

Promiscuity Does Not Scare Me As Long As She Is Savvy And Self Possessed When Puberty Comes To Call. My Aim Is To Simply Raise My Daughter To Be Secure In Her Self Worth And Capable Of Happiness All On Her Own.

Birth Is The Epicenter Of Women's Power

Inspirational Pregnancy

Any Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right.

I Love To Exercise My Creativity In Many Ways But As Each Year Of Specialization Goes By I Feel Further And Further From My Other Creative Selves. I Used To Be Able To See Myself Doing Many Things And Sometimes I Still Long For A Job That Involves Less Pressure And Grappling With People But, As You Say, I Am One Of The Lucky Ones So I Try To Just Focus On Feeling Lucky And Carry On!

The Old Farm Roads A Four Lane That Leads To The Mall, And Our Dreams Are All Guillotines Waiting To Fall.

I Don't Know If There Are Artists Out There Who Love Their Own Records. I Haven't Met Any, And I'm Kind Of Extreme In The Other Direction, But Therein Lies The Impetus To Keep Working And Keep Making New Songs And New Records.

Virtue Is Relative At Best, There's Nothing Worse Than A Sunset When Your Driving Due West.

We've Got Ego's Like Hairdos.

Playing Show After Show Is Like My Bread And Butter.

Bread And Butter

I Fight With Love And I Laugh With Rage....you Gotta Live Light Enough To See The Humor, And Long Enough To See Some Change.

You've Decided To Love Me For Eternity, I'm Still Deciding Who I Want To Be Today.

I'm Aware Enough, I Guess, Of American Labor History.

I Do It For The Joy It Brings Because I'm A Joyful Girl Because The World Owes Me Nothing And We Owe Each Other The World

I Envy Your Ignorance, I Hear That It's Bliss.

I Do Believe That Music Has An Intense Power To Connect Us Together, To Inspire Us To Become Ourselves.

They Say That The Truth Will Set You Free But Then Again, So Will A Lie... It Depends If You're Trying To Get To The Promised Land Or If You're Just Trying To Get By.

Truth Will Set You Free

I've Been A Long Time Coming, And I'll Be A Long Time Gone. You've Got Your Whole Life To Do Something, And That's Not Very Long.

When I First Started Writing Songs And Being Very Explicit, It Was Hard, But One Of The Main Things People Respond To In My Writing Is That 'just Say It' Attitude Of My Songs. There Really Is Nothing Personal Or Private; It's All Universal, If You Can Just Find The Courage To Be Open About Your Life.

Too Much Is How I Love You, But Too Well Is How I Know You.

I Turned My Pain Into Art And My Hard Work Into A Career. Helping Myself Has Helped Others. Helping Others Has Helped Me.

And 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 Pheonix And You Dare To Rise Up From The Ash A Thousand Eyes Will Smolder With Jealousy While You Are Just Flying Back

I'll Walk The Plank And I'll Jump With A Smile, Cause If I'm Gonna Go Down I'm Gonna Do It With Style.

And This Vague Little Smile Is My All Purpose Expression The Meaning Of Which I Will Leave To Your Discretion.

Let's Grow Old And Die Together. Let's Do It Now.

I Did Not Design This Game; I Did Not Name The Stakes. I Just Happen To Like Apples; And I Am Not Afraid Of Snakes.

I Believe The Act Of Giving Birth To Be The Single Most Miraculous Thing A Human Being Can Do And It Is Surely The Moment When A Lot Of Women Finally Understand The Depth Of Their Power. You Think It Can’t Possibly Be Done, You Think You Can’t Possibly Take The Pain, And Then You Do-—and Afterward You Look At Yourself In A Whole New Way. If You Can Do That, You Can Do Anything.

We're Led By Denial Like Lambs To Slaughter, Serving Empires Of Style And Carbonated Sugar Water.

You Are So Lame. You Always Disappoint Me. It's Kind Of Like Our Running Joke But It's Really Not Funny And I Just Want You To Live Up To The Image Of You I Create.

I'm Pretty Much A Workaholic, But When You're Doing What You Love It's Hard To Think Of A Reason To Stop.

Doing What You Love

There Isn't Much I Have To Say, That I Wouldn't Rather Just Shut Up And Do.

All The Decent People, Male And Female, Are Feminists. The Only People Who Are Not Feminists Are Those Who Believe That Women Are Inherently Inferior Or Undeserving Of The Respect And Opportunity Afforded Men. Either You Are A Feminist Or You Are A Misogynist. There Is No Box Marked "other."

These Days, My Main Guitar Amps Have Been Magnatone. They're Beautiful. Magnatones Have Actual Tremolo, Which I Recently Learned About Guitar Amps. Often What Guitar Amps Call Vibrato Is Really Just A Volume Up And Down. But Magnatone Has A True Vibrato, Which Is Pitch Bending. And So, It's Just A Lush Sound.

We Get A Little Further From Perfection Each Year. I Think That's Called Character. I Think That's Just How It Goes.

I Was Attracted To A Lot Of Different Art Forms - Dancing, Painting. But There's Something About Music That People Hold So Close. It's Such A Powerful Art Form, And That's Why I Live For It.

Love Was Always The Goal, And My Point Every Step Of The Way Was That Nothing Is Wrong With Love, No Matter What Flavor It Comes In.

Why Do You Think I Write These Feminist Songs, To Try And Teach Myself To Respect Myself. You Know, It's Not Because I'm A Hero.

There's This Brutal Imperial Power, That My Passport Says I Represent. But It Will Never Represent Where My Heart Lives, Only Vaguely Where It Went.

There's A Paradox In Every Paradigm.

I Would Rather Have These Things Weigh On My Mind. At The End Of This Tunnel Of Guilt And Shame, There Must Be A Light Of Some Kind.

I've Been Trying To Learn How To Not Be So Conflicted About Things Like My Own Anger. I've Always Had A Place In My Music For My Anger As A Way Of Compensating For Not Having A Mechanism To Express It In My Everyday Life. So I've Been Trying To Be More True To Myself, And That Helps Me To Chill Out A Little Bit. But Politically, Uh-uh. No.

I Sincerely Believe Patriarchy To Be At The Root Of All Of Our Social Diseases And Feminism, It's Antidote, To Be A Prerequisite To Peace On Earth. Feminism Provides An Alternative Way Of Thinking And Structuring Things That Focuses On And Prioritizes Relationships And De-emphasizes Hierarchy, Separation And Domination.

My Life May Not Be Something Special But It's Never Been Lived Before.

Something Special

If You Want To Challenge The System, Don't Go To Bed With It.

I Still Define Myself By The Places That I've Been.

If You Don't Live What You Sing About, Your Mirror Is Gonna Fade.

I Think When A Society Has Such A Profoundly Dark And Awful Evil Such As Slavery In Its History, Then It Leaves Scars That Are Very, Very Deep. And Unless We Collectively Address Them And Really Put Our Effort To Healing Them, They'll Perpetuate. The United States Of America Are Still Suffering From The Echoes Of Slavery. I Think We're Still Reeling From All The Pain That Is A Result Of It, And That's A Reality.

I Know The Biggest Crime Is Just To Throw Up Your Hands, Say, This Has Nothing To Do With Me, I Just Want To Live As Comfortably As I Can...

I Know Men Are Delicate Origami Creatures Who Need Women To Unfold Them, Hold Them When They Cry. But I Am Tired Of Being Your Savior And I Am Tired Of Telling You Why.

When I Was Like Sixteen, I Was A Total Chick I Had Big Hair. I Was Seen As This Attractive Girl, And I Would Get All This Attention. And Then I Just Cut Off My Hair, And I Quit Playing That Game.

When I Look Down, I Miss All The Good Stuff And When I Look Up, I Just Trip Over Things.

But In The Garden Of Simple, Where All Of Us Are Nameless, You Were Never Anything But Beautiful To Me.

Art Is Why I Get Up In The Morning But My Definition Ends There. You Know I Don't Think Its Fair That I'm Living For Something I Can't Even Define.

I Have Something To Prove, As Long As I Know There's Something That Needs Improvement, And You Know That Everytime I Move, I Make A Woman's Movement.

I Love My Country, By Which I Mean, I Am Indebted Joyfully, To All The People Throughout Its History, Who Have Fought The Government To Make Right, Where So Many Cunning Sons And Daughters, Our Foremothers And Forefathers, Came Singing Through Slaughter, Came Through Hell And High Water, So That We Could Stand Here, And Behold Breathlessly The Sight, How A Raging River Of Tears, Cut A Grand Canyon Of Light... Why Can't All Decent Men And Women, Call Themselves Feminists? Out Of Respect, For Those Who Fought For This...

I Just Hope It Was Okay, I Know It Wasn't Perfect, I Hope In The End We Can Laugh And Say It Was All Worth It.

I Think The Music Industry, For Instance, Is Such A Huge, Multibazillion-dollar Industry And It's Become Very, Very Savvy. There's A Very Short Grace Period In Which Actual Human Rebellion Or Resistance Can Thrive Before It's Co-opted By These Huge Companies. And All Of Youth Culture Is Packaged And Sold Back To Us At This Furious Rate These Days. I Think It's Part And Parcel To This Corporate Encroachment On Our Lives In General.

We Are Wise Women, We Are Giggling Girls. We Both Carry A Smile To Show When We're Pleased, We Both Carry A Switchblade In Our Sleeves.

I Did A Lot Of Work With Myself Over The Course Of Being Pregnant And The First Few Months Of Being Pregnant. It's Nice, The Pace Of Being Pregnant; It Gives You A Long Time To Not Just Germinate A Baby But Germinate The Mother That You're Gonna Be.

I Would Like To Perfect The Art Of Being Studiously Aloof

What Makes You So Lavish That You Can Afford To Spend Every Sober Moment Feeling Angry And Bored?

Unanswered Questions

If A Politician Is Running In Your Local Community Who's Pro-choice, Who's Feminist In Their Thinking, Get Behind Them. Send Them Some Money! If You Have No Money But Have Time, Lick Stamps!

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.

Let's Show Them All How It's Done, Let's Do It All Imperfectly.

Then I Show Up Steady Ready And Proud And I Find I've Forgotten How To Talk Out Loud. Isn't It Just Like You To Bring Me To My Knees?

I Sing Sometimes For The War That I Fight, 'cause Every Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right.

I'm The Color Me Happy Girl, Miss Live And Let Live. And When They're Out For Blood, I Always Give.

People Who Are Just Starting Out Are Always Sort Of Coming To Me For Advice As The Example Of "independent Girl," And Lots Of People Ask, Well, How Did You Get The Booking Agent Or The National Distribution Or The Tours? And I Look At Them Like, "good Lord! Relax!" I Mean, How I Did It Was To Not Care About It And To Not Even Think About It For Years And Years. All I Thought About Was Getting The Next Little Gig In The Little Bar, And I Get This Sense That People Want Me To Give Them The Secret Formula Or The Magic Trick To Make It All Happen.

My Political Mission Is As Acute As Ever. For Me, In Addition To Kind Of Looking At The World And Trying To Engage In My Society Politically, Having The Kid Around Sort Of Makes Me Check In With Myself. I Think You're All Busy Trying To Fix The World, But What About Yourself?

There's A Crowd Of People Harbored In Each Person There Are So Many Roles That We Play.

I Feel Like We Need To Understand Feminism More As A Tool To Mediate, Counteract, To Ultimately Defeat Patriarchy And Restore Balance To Our Government, Our Culture And Our Ways Of Thinking And Structuring The World. I Think We've Had A Very "masculine" Sensibility For A Long Time, And I Think We Need To Go Back To The Roots Of Social Imbalance. I Think We Have To Try To Right That First, And From There And All These More Pressing Issues Will Follow.

They Taught Me Different Was Wrong.

...words Are Some Of The Most Powerful And Important Things I Know....language Is The Tool Of Love And The Weapon Of Hatred. It's The Bright Red Warning Flag Of Danger--and The Stone Foundation Of Diplomacy And Peace.

Either You Are A Feminist Or You Are A Sexist/misogynist. There Is No Box Marked 'other'.

Like How Could You Do Nothing, And Say, 'i'm Doing My Best.' How Could You Take Almost Everything, And Then Come Back For The Rest? How Could You Beg Me To Stay, Reach Out Your Hands And Plead, And Then Pack Up Your Eyes And Run Away As Soon As I Agreed?

I'd Rather Be Able To Face Myself In The Bathroom Mirror Than Be Rich And Famous.

Someday You're Going To Get Hungry And Eat Most Of The Words You Just Said.

Men Make Angry Music And It's Called Rock-and-roll; Women Include Anger In Their Vocabulary And Suddenly They're Angry And Militant.

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Mikhail Bakunin

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