~ Lyrics ~ All songs copyright Jan C. Marra/Laughing Girl Music (BMI). All rights reserved, etc. I rarely stop writing my songs. Consequently, your mileage may vary when you compare these words to the words on your CD. They're close, though... THIS IS MY FAMILY This is my family Go everywhere with me Close as close can be Do you love all of me? Marge wears five-inch spikes She likes to scratch and bite She barks at what she likes She really likes you, dear She can take you down Weighs three hundred pounds She's kind of been around And she'd like some now There's the one named Lou He's not sure of you He wears a skull tattoo On his knife-throwing arm There's Rock and Rendezvous They paint their faces blue They want to meet you too They like your easygoing charm Ida's a debutante Clyde's a bon vivant Lloyd knows what he wants He wants a man like you Little Eva's small Only three feet tall But not shy at all She wants a man like you Then there's the one you see Blonde simplicity Little boring me They call me Blushing Sweet You look like you relate Oh I can hardly wait For our second date Come meet the rest of me This is my family Go everywhere with me Number twenty-three Live inside of me This is my family Go everywhere with me Close as close can be Do you love all of me Do you love all of me Do you love all of me? WHEN YOU GET TO HEAVEN I was thumbing through the pages of my gospel magazine And in there was a picture, and I wonder what it means A picture of the heavenfolk in a picnic on the grass Serving up a supper out of Tupperware and glass It was chili macaroni and noodle tuna fish When you get to heaven, you got to bring a covered dish Take the fixins with you when you give up your soul 'Cause when you get to heaven, you got to bring a casserole. Julia Child, well, she died, now she knows what I knew And Emeril LeGasse--he would not know what to do French cuisine won't make the scene, I'm here to tell you why The ladies of the church run that Big Buffet In The Sky Yes, it's chili macaroni . . . . There's a seat at the Welcome Table and it's waiting just for me I've seen the writing on the wall and it's a recipe So bury me with mushroom soup and green beans in a can Throw in some french-fried onion rings and send me to the Promised Land Yes it's chili macaroni and noodle tuna fish When you get to heaven you got to bring a covered dish Take the fixins with you when you give up your soul 'Cause when you get to heaven you got to bring a casserole Better be mm, mm, good, and you better bring a casserole. OH BABY Oh baby I love you so Oh baby I love you so Can't tell nobody Nobody's supposed to know Oh baby I love you so Can't tell mama, mama scream and shout Can't tell papa, papa throw me out Can't tell sister, she don't understand I can't tell nobody in this whole wide land That oh, baby I love you so . . . . I tried to tell brother Brother chase me with a stick I tried to tell the doctor Doctor told me I am sick I tried to tell the preacher Preacher told me where to go I tried to tell the neighbors They already know That oh, baby I love you so . . . . DELLA AND ROSE Della and Rose had a back-street house It was a bit rundown It had cats and plants and a place to put your feet Pretty good life You don't need much and you do all right Best friend by your side Might even call it sweet Now the owners want the land so they condemn the house Take forty years of living here and go You're too old to live this way Please be out in thirty days We'd be glad to see you to a nursing home Della and Rose had a good thing going A good thing going and how Della and Rose had a good thing going, uh-huh They're losing it now What do you do with all the plants and the pictures The view out the window You thought you'd rest easy the rest of your long life Sorry, they say, that you don't like the high-rise We politely put you out--we had the legal right The owners don't care, they don't have to care Two old ladies in a nursing home don't sue It's a fact that folks get old, it's a fact the story's cold It's a shame there ain't a lot that you can do Della and Rose had a good thing going A good thing going and how Della and Rose had a good thing going, uh-huh They're losing it now Here comes the big bulldozer Man in the blue workshirt Pushing at the house foundations Knocking it down to the dirt One night Della went drinking Called a cab to get her and got A bit confused in her thinking Took it to a vacant lot Where is my home? Della and Rose had a good thing going, uh-huh They're losing it now. Letting it go for a season Letting the crabgrass grow Getting to be forgotten That's how the good things go Della and Rose . . . . SHE'LL DO FINE She's got some songs and she's got some style She's got a winsome strawberry smile She's twenty-two and she's all brand-new And she's got a whole lotta hands to go through But as long as the boys want to meet her As long as the boys want to hold her hand As long as the boys want an autograph She'll do fine Baby-blue eyes and baby-girl voice She can be this month's flavor of choice Can she shake it, fake it, make like a flirt Do the guys in the front row try to look up her skirt And as long as the boys . . . . Check out that photo, open mouth and tumbled curls How many more can you sell if she says that she once kissed a girl But as long as the boys in the band As long as the boys in the stands And all those late-night no-dates pounding to a poster on the wall Yeah, as long as they all want to meet her As long as they all want to hold her hand As long as they all want an autograph She'll do fine As long as they all wanna As long as they all wanna As long as they all want an autograph She'll do fine TWO HANDS There's a quality taken for granted No one seems to talk about it much But babies are known to wither and die For the want of a loving touch Children are blessedly simple They cry to be hugged and to be held But once we are grown we're told to stand alone Told to keep our hands to ourselves. But sometimes words will fail you You have more than words at your command You carry the power to love and to heal Right there in your own two hands. So often the touch of another Raises doubt and suspicion in our heads It must be some kind of come-on A trick to try and get us into bed But I just want someone to hold me Why is it so hard to say? So we fight, fool around, lay our bodies down And the need never seems to go away But sometimes words will fail you . . . . So eagerly we break the bonds of family Independent, self-sufficient, all alone And now the words "reach out and touch someone" Make you think of the long-distance phone. But sometimes words will fail you . . . . THESE CRAZY YEARS It all depends, they say, on finding your own way I've found so many ways to go wrong I just wish that the life that I'm leading Were are simple as singing this song If I can just survive these crazy years, These crazy years, these crazy years If I can just survive these crazy years I'll win without losing it all Bad nights, infights, friends you can't find People you've got to impress You give all you've got and you take what you get With no promise of happiness If I can just survive these crazy years. These crazy years, these crazy years If I can just get over these crazy fears I'll win without losing it all When you pay your dues, you sing some heartfelt blues Are you rising to the top, or have you just gone too far to stop? It's so hard sometimes not to tell easy lies So easy to join in the games Well, I'd like to rise like the sun in the skies But I don't want to go down in flames If I can just survive these crazy years, These crazy years, these crazy years If I can just quit crying these crazy tears I'll win without losing it all I COMB MY HAIR, I WATCH TV My parents named me Debra Lee I like the name Krystle Marie I don't know what I want to be I comb my hair, I watch TV I am sixteen I'm a junior I do all right I don't like school Do my homework Because you have to After I do I watch TV I have a boyfriend His name is Jason We drive around And we drink beer He's almost eighteen He's joined the navy He says he's getting out of here This is no place Nothing happens Nothing real Like on TV I don't think about I don't care about Comb my hair, I watch TV My parents named me Debra Lee I like the name Krystle Marie I don't know what I want to be I comb my hair, I watch TV Maybe a model Maybe an actress California Live by the sea After high school Here in town there's a School of cosmetology My mother wants me to Go and take some Secretarial course I could get married Like my sister She's got three kids She's divorced My parents named me Debra Lee I like the name Krystle Marie I don't know what I want to be I comb my hair, I watch TV I MAY DIE SOMEDAY I may die someday Maybe in a natural disaster That's one way If the earth comes calling my name Making her claim To carry me away Well, that's okay. I may die someday And fall unto my friends to bury me I hope there'll be Gather me my trinkets around Cross my hands and lay me down Ten thousand years deep I'll surely keep. I may die someday Something I might choose to do So could you Walk toward the north star and then Give myself to the wind And the winter and the wolves I'd feed the wolves. I may die someday And everybody think that I am gone Well, they'd be wrong Give me to the sky or to the ground I am everywhere around I have been here all along I've never been gone. I may die someday Someday GRINGOTENANGO Down south of the border is a town named Gringotenango I found myself hanging around in Gringotenango You can pursue all your favorite vices Buy your food at 1967 prices You can smoke reefer there and no one seems to care In Gringotenango Arrivals and departures every day in Gringotenango You never know how long you're gonna stay in Gringotenango As for romance, you quickly discover So very very easy to take or leave a lover And if there's every a fuss, someone gets on the bus In Gringotenango Every day at the beach, every night at the bar Everybody's waiting for some money to arrive Every Saturday down at the market Everybody selling their belongings for the money to survive You get the blues just the same in Gringotenango When you haven't a centavo to your name in Gringotenango I've had enough of the sunshine and the slumber So I'll be passing the sombrero for this number Won't you take me away 'cause I don't want to stay In Gringotenango This adventure's a lotta baloney Y pasare' el sombrero por estas canciones Won't you take me away 'cause I don't want to stay In Gringotenango Oh, how I want to go home. BROKEN LOCKET My heart is a locket Broken clean in two One half is mine, love The other belongs to you If heartache were honey and cake And the tears I've shed were wine Enough for you and I, love And many more to dine If love were high learning If passion made me wise I could answer any question That any could devise My wisdom is as water And passion a burning pyre And not enough of one, love To ever quench the fire WHO YOU ARE Imagine one day a movie director Comes to your door, says he'll make you a star So you ask him what part you'll be playing He only says, "You'll just be who you are." Who you are, who you are How do you know how to be who you are? Do you need a costume, do you need a plaything A diamond, a fur coat, a gun or a car? Does appearance define you to where no one can find you, What hat do you wear? Is that who you are? Who you are, who you are How do you know how to be who you are? Do you seek out the sun, do you seek out the light Do you love only one, do you say it outright Do you blink back the tears, do you lie through your teeth Do you try to be kind, do you think you are free? Without one valid form of identification Say you lost your wallet, the keys to you car You lost your orders, you lost your directions No one knows who you are, do you know who you are Who you are, who you are How do you know how to be who you are? AMANDA A drawing on a classroom wall For anyone to see Crayon scrawl across the page Amanda talks to me Two lines define the trunk of a tree A tree so strangely made Two tiny branches with tiny leaves That give no shelter or shade Amanda draws a bunch of balloons In colors bright and gay Their strings are flying loose and free It seems they got away Amanda, worthy of love Here's a balloon bouquet Let's plant a tree so tall and green And brush those clouds away Across the top, from edge to edge And heavily applied Black crayon from her color box Amanda draws the sky Down in the corner, barely there A crude-drawn figure stands Her arms reach for those lost balloons But Amanda has no hands Amanda, worthy of love Here's a balloon bouquet Let's plant a tree so tall and green And brush those clouds away A sky with no sun, a tree with no crown Balloons lost and floating away Amanda's face, it has no mouth What is she trying to say Amanda, worthy of love Here's a balloon bouquet Let's plant a tree so tall and green And brush those clouds away. Amanda . . . .
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