(no subject)

[yendi]

This is still one of my all-time favorite songs (although it's only at its best if you've heard Brenda sing it - if anyone wants to listen, I can probably find a way for the mp3 to appear on your computer, just let me know). Written in 1990, its still nearly perfect today.

Goldfish Don't Talk Back, by Brenda Kahn


I used to get scared when the planes went by
Thought a Russian bomb would drop out of the sky.
Thought I'd fight and die and go heaven,
But I've learned some things since then.

Like no one really knows what's two plus two,
And you can't always trust the guys in blue.
Well, you may think the world's gone mad,
But baby, they think it's you.

And every candy store on the block sells crack,
Every Supreme Court is three steps back,
There's acid rain in the drinking water,
But the goldfish, they don't talk back.

Oh no.

And this song is for Phil Ochs,
Hung himself with a length of rope.
Took his job seriously,
Weren't no nine-to-five folksinger,
like the ones on MTV.
That's what Kurt Kelly said to me,
On the corner of Clinton and Houston street,

Where every candy store on the block sells crack,
Every Supreme Court is three steps back,
There's acid rain in the drinking water,
But the goldfish, they don't talk back.


I went down to the Laundromat,
And there's a women with a face likea Siamese cat
Trying to wash her only clothes --
The clothes on her back.

Well, she's in a St. Vincent wheelchair,
But it looks like St. Vincent don't care.
Sixty-pound skeleton in underwear.
Mr. President, the nation doesn't look secure;
Are you sure what you spent all our money for?

And there's a great big hole where the sky used to be.
And there's an asshole on my tv
Who says, "act now, you get nine issues free,
Plus an issue of women with an eating disease."

And every candy store on the block sells crack,
Every Supreme Court is three steps back,
There's acid rain in the drinking water,
But the goldfish, they don't talk back.

Let's not be goldfish.