Day 88, Song 108

Ani Difranco

Tis of Thee

Ani Difranco's latest album, Binary, will be released on June 9th, 2017.

This song was the first track on Difranco's 1999 record, Up Up Up Up Up Up. The album peaked at number 29 on the US charts. It marked a return to a folkier sound for Difranco, after the conceptual experimentation she undertook with her previous album, Little Plastic Castle.

Lyrics

they caught the last poor man on a poor man's vacation they cuffed him and confiscated his stuff they dragged his black ass down to the station and said, ok, the streets are safe now all your pretty white children can come out and see spot run and they came out of their houses and they looked around but they didn't see no one my country 'tis of thee to take swings at each other on the talkshow tv why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun cuz we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you undo everything they've done to you above 96th street they're handing out smallpox blankets so people don't freeze the old dogs have got a new trick it's called criminalize the symptoms while you spread the disease and i hold on hard to something between my teeth when i'm sleeping i wake up and my jaw aches and the earth is full of earthquakes my country 'tis of thee To take shots at each other on prime time tv why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun cuz we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you undo everything they've done to you they caught the last poor man flying away in a shiny red cape they took him down to the station and they said, boy, you should've known better than to try to escape i ran away with the circus cuz there's still some honest work left for bearded ladies since they put everyone in jail except the cleavers and the bradys my country 'tis of thee to take swings at each other on the talkshow tv why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun cuz we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you undo everything they've done to you