Ani DiFranco, by Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco

by Ani DiFranco

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Charles Fikes She can kick it on the guitar. Favorite track: Lost Woman Song.

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1.	Both Hands 03:38	lyrics	buy track
i am walking out in the rain i am listening to the low moan of the dial tone again i am getting nowhere with you i can’t let it go and i can’t get through the old woman behind the pink curtains and the closed door on the first floor she’s listening through the airshaft to see how long our swan song can last both hands now use both hands no don’t close your eyes i am writing graffiti on your body i am drawing the story of how hard we tried i am watching your chest rise and fall like the tides of my life and the rest of it all your bones have been my bed frame and your flesh has been my pillow i’ve been waiting for sleep to offer up the deep with both hands in each other’s shadow we grew less and less tall and eventually our theories couldn’t explain it all so i’m recording our history now on the bedroom wall and when we leave the landlord will come and paint over it all
2.	Talk to Me Now 04:29	lyrics	buy track
he said ani, you’ve gotten tough because my tone was curt yeah, and when i’m approached in a dark alley i don’t lift my skirt in this city self preservation is a full-time occupation i’m determined to survive on these shores i don’t avert my eyes anymore in a man’s world i am a woman by birth and after nineteen times around i have found they will stop at nothing once they know what you are worth talk to me now i played the powerless in too many dark scenes and i was blessed with a birth and a death and i guess i just want some say in between don’t you understand in the day to day in the face to face i have to act as strong as i can just to preserve a place where i can be who i am so if you still know how you can talk to me now
3.	The Slant 01:36	lyrics	buy track
the slant a building settling around me my figure female framed crookedly in the threshold of the room door scraping floor boards with every opening carving a rough history of bedroom scenes the plot hard to follow the text obscured in the folds of sheets slowly gathering the stains of seasons spent lying there red and brown like leaves fallen the colors of an eternal cycle fading with the wash cycle and the rinse cycle again an un- familiar smell like my name misspelled or misspoken a cycle broken the sound of them strong stalking talking about their prey like the way hammer meets nail pounding they say pounding out the rhythms of attraction like a woman was a drum like a body was a weapon like there was something more they wanted than the journey like it was owed to them steel toed they walk and i’m wondering why this fear of men maybe it’s ‘cuz i’m hungry and like a baby i’m dependent on them to feed me i am a work in progress dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding offering me intricate patterns of questions rhythms that never come clean and strengths that you still haven’t seen
4.	Work Your Way Out 04:08	lyrics	buy track
lying on the floor four stories high in the corridor between the asphalt and the sky i am caught like bottled water the light daughter i wonder what you look like under your t-shirt i wonder what you sound like when you’re not wearing words i wonder what we have when we’re not pretending it is never ending haven’t you heard i don’t need to tell you what this is about you just start on the inside and work your way out we are all polylingual but some of us pretend that there is virtue in relying on not trying to understand we’re all citizens of the womb before we subdivide into sexes and shades this side that side i don’t need to tell you what it is about you just start on the inside and work your way out undressing for the fan like it was a man wondering about all the things that i’ll never understand there are some things that you can’t know unless you’ve been there but oh how far we could go if we started to share i don’t need to tell you what it is about you just start on the inside and work your way out
5.	Dog Coffee 02:56	lyrics	buy track
perpetrating counter-culture she is walking through the park the first light ugly and more muscular than the dark pushing poems at the urban silence drawing portraits of the passers by sitting on the curb combining traffic sounds getting dirty looks and dirty jeans on the dirty ground she says i can’t figure out what kind of life this is comedy or tragedy i just know it’s show biz but what if i don’t agree with the lines i have to read they don’t pay me enough the way i see it freedom and democracy that’s the word from washington every day put america to sleep with warm milk and a cliche some people are expendable along the way your dollar is dependable what more can we say would you like some dog coffee it is all that we’ve got you can have some or you can have not would you like some dog coffee it is all that we’ve got we’re taking care of business and meanwhile some of the beans rot
6.	Lost Woman Song 04:50	lyrics	buy track
i opened a bank account when i was nine years old i closed it when i was eighteen i gave them every penny that i’d saved and they gave my blood and my urine a number now i’m sitting in the waiting room playing with the toys i am here to exercise my freedom of choice i passed their hand held signs i went through their picket lines they gathered when they saw me coming they shouted when they saw me cross i said why don’t you go home just leave me alone i’m just another woman lost you are like fish in the water who don’t know that they are wet but as far as i can tell the world isn’t perfect yet his bored eyes were obscene on his denimed thighs a magazine i wish he’d never come here with me in fact i wish he’d never come near me i wish his shoulder wasn’t touching mine i am growing older waiting in this line but some of life’s best lessons are learned at the worst times under the fierce fluorescent she offered her hand for me to hold she offered stability and calm and i was crushing her palm through the pinch pull wincing my smile unconvincing on the sterile battlefield that sees only casualties never heros my heart hit absolute zero lucille, your voice still sounds in me mine was a relatively easy tragedy the profile of our country looks a little less hard-nosed but that picket line persisted and that clinic has since been closed they keep pounding their fists on reality
7.	Pale Purple 04:02	lyrics	buy track
pale purple nipples goose pimples she shivers shifts from a walk to a trot alone in the city infested with faces immune to new friendships interested in places she’s never seen she says everything is grey here and nothing is green the girls down the street fifteen, seventeen years old you can smell them getting pregnant you can hear their rock and roll that’s america you have to be tough like a glad trash bag the government is just an old nag with a good pedigree but pedigrees don’t help you and me i see the precedent is grey here and i don’t expect green unless something unforeseen happens i’m surrounded by the haves they say i can have some too just because of what i do do they think a lot about those who have not or is it just distracting from what they do most of us have grey except for those who can pay for green i’m torn i’m torn rejecting outfits offered me regretting things i’ve worn when i was still playing roles in order to fill holes in my conception of who i am you know, now i understand it’s not important to be defined it’s only important to use your time well well time is something nobody can buy and nobody can sell you so don’t let anybody tell you they have the advantage because all the grey people can say every day doesn’t mean anything if your mind is green pale purple nipples goose pimples she shivers shifts from a walk to a trot alone in the city infested with faces immune to new friendships interested in places she’s never seen she says everything is grey here otherwise i’d stay here but i’m looking for green just like every human being
8.	Rush Hour 05:03	lyrics	buy track
rush hour rush hour at the day’s dawning the rain came and pushed me under the awning the puddles grew and threw themselves at me with every passing car i’m shielding my guitar there were some things that i did not tell him there were certain things he did not need to know there were some days that i did not love him he did not understand me and i don’t know why i didn’t go he said change the channel i’ve got problems of my own i’m so sick of hearing about drugs and aids and people without homes and i said well, i’d like to sympathize with that but if you don’t understand then how can you act i expected summer to be there in the morning i awoke to the alarm but she was out of arm’s reach sneaking out on silent thighs that were spent and sore from the hot nights that came before he said i looked for you and i don’t know why i said i was wearing black so you could see me against the sky take your big leather boots and your buckles and your chains put them on a downtown train i expected he would be there in the morning i awoke to the alarm he was still in arm’s reach but his body was just a disguise his mind had wandered off long ago i could tell by his eyes love isn’t over when the sheets are stained in my head there remains so much left to be said make me laugh, make me cry, enrage me but just don’t try to disengage me
9.	Fire Door 02:42	lyrics	buy track
i opened the fire door to four lips none of which were mine kissing tightened my belt around my hips where your hands are missing and stepped out in the cold collar high under the slate grey sky the air was smoking and the streets were dry and i wasn’t joking when i said goodbye past magazine quality men talking on the corner french no less much less of them than us so why do i feel like something’s been rearranged you know, taken out of context i must seem so strange killed a cockroach so big it left a puddle of puss on my wall when you and i are lying in bed you don’t seem so tall and i’m singing now because my tear ducts are too tired and my mind is disconnected but my heart is wired i make such a good statistic someone should study me now someone’s got to be interested in how i feel just because i’m here and i’m real oh how i miss substituting the conclusion to a confrontation with a kiss and oh how i miss walking up to the edge and jumping in like i could feel the future on your skin
10.	The Story 03:30	lyrics	buy track
i would have returned your greeting if it weren’t for the way you were looking at me this street is not a market and i am not a commodity don’t you find it sad that we can’t even say hello because you’re a man and i’m a woman and the sun is getting low there are some places that i can’t go as a woman i can’t go there and as a person i don’t care i don’t go for the hey baby what’s your name and i’d like to go alone thank you just the same i am up again against the skin of my guitar in the window of my life looking out through the bars i am sounding out the silence avoiding all the words i’m afraid i’ve said too much i’m afraid of who has heard me my father, he told me the story and it was true for his time but now the story is different maybe i should tell him mine all the girls line up here all the boys on the other side i see your ranks are advancing i see mine are left behind i am up again against the skin of my guitar in the window of my life looking out through the bars i am sounding out the silence avoiding all the words i’m afraid i can never say enough i’m afraid no one has heard me despite all the balls that i’ve been thrown and forced to drop on the social totem pole i’m preciously close to the top they put you in your place and they tell you to behave but no one can be free until we’re all on even grade and i would have returned your greeting if it weren’t for the way you were looking at me
11.	Every Angle 02:44	lyrics	buy track
i’m imaging your frame every angle and every plane i’m imaging your smell the once that mingled with mine once upon a time thoughts of you are picketing my brain they refuse to work such long hours without rest in unstable conditions at best they’re out there every day holding up their signs and thoughts of no other man but you can possibly get through the picket lines to enter into my mind i’m imagining your laugh again the one that you save for your family and your very close friends i’m imagining the way you say my name i don’t know when i’m going to hear it again my friends can’t tell my laughter from my cries somebody tell this photograph of you to let go of my eyes i’m imagining your frame i’m imagining your smell i’m imagining your laugh again and the way you say my name
12.	Out of Habit 02:45	lyrics	buy track
the butter melts out of habit the toast isn’t even warm the waitress and the man in the plaid shirt play out a scene they’ve played so many times before i am watching the sun stumble home in the morning from a bar on the east side of town and the coffee is just water dressed in brown beautiful but boring he visited me yesterday he noticed my fingers and he asked me if i would play i didn’t really care a lot but i couldn’t think of a reason why not i said if you don’t come any closer i don’t mind if you stay my thighs have been involved in many accidents and now i can’t get insured and i don’t need to be lured by you my cunt is built like a wound that won’t heal now you don’t have to ask because you know how i feel art is why i get up in the morning but my definition ends there it doesn’t seem fair that i’m living for something i can’t even define there you are right there in the meantime i don’t want to play for you anymore show me what you can do tell me what are you here for i want my old friends i want my old face i want my old mind fuck this time and place the butter melts out of habit the toast isn’t even warm
13.	Letting the Telephone Ring 04:32	lyrics	buy track
i am letting the telephone ring cause i don’t want to know why i don’t want to hear you explain i don’t want to hear you cry i have written so much about you so much i though i knew words like water used to flow now what can i possibly have to say she is someone i don’t even know and all the things that you’ve given to me i see now were simply reparations they were gifts of your guilt they were my preparation i know i should be mature keep my feet on the floor but for some reason i just don’t want them anymore i know this shouldn’t be important compared to you and i but i can still hear my questions and i can still hear you lie now vicariously i have her in me i want to peel off my skin let the water wash in you always said that i was hiding that i was hiding from you but you are capable of things that i could not do remember how you pretended pretended to touch me i remember how i couldn’t bring myself to believe i remember wondering what was wrong what was wrong- how could i be so naive

about

Ani DiFranco's first album is so revolutionary that the purveyors of status quo install women's music sections in the dusty corner of their stores in order to hide it. Dorm rooms coast to coast transform into audio dub houses where young women with aching arms scratch out hand written labels and personal letters like "you have to hear this". These quasi-booking agent and pirate distributors work long into the night purchasing greyhound tickets for a certain young Folksinger to come play at their school.

Today. Folk and poetry prevail. Vulnerable stories arm themselves as powerful songs on Ani DiFranco's self-titled first solo record. Ani's voice is rich and eloquent. Her guitar moves like an appendage. From cockroach pus to abortion rights the record doesn't flinch. This singer/songwriter Folk Mecca contains songs with an epic stage life such as, "Both Hands," "Out of Habit," "The Slant," and "Fire Door". Live versions of these lovely tunes can be located in such divergent locations as Living In Clip and Render: Spanning Time with Ani DiFranco.

All of the tracks embody the love and humor inherent in Ani's music. Thematically this record gives a face to feminism that is both beautiful and accessible to anyone. The stories focus on relationships and humanity. We sit in the waiting room of an abortion clinic after facing an angry crowd in "Lost Woman Song". "Talk to Me Now" and "The Story" confront the inequality of the sexes in a man's world.

The love songs examine relationships with the same discernment as the political ones. "Both Hands" is a hands down favorite among any DiFranco fan. "Every Angle" infuses the thrill of protest with the joy of a crush, "thoughts of you are picketing my brain/ they refuse to work such long hours without rest/ in unstable conditions at best". And the unforgettably poetic and guitarific, "Fire Door" is a heartfelt treat in its first studio recording.

Hair: None.
Instrumentation: Acoustic Guitar/Vocal Chords.
RBR: A wee seed in the garden of songs.
Misc. The poem, "The Slant" was written in Sekou Sundiata's poetry class at the New School. Sekou's own verse and style can be found in the RBR catalog of cool.
AKA: First Album

credits

released November 1, 1990

1990, 1990 Righteous Babe Records distributed by United For Opportunity

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about

Ani DiFranco New Orleans, Louisiana

Grammy winner and feminist icon Ani DiFranco began her career as a proponent of the artist-run label, creating her own Righteous Babe Records in 1990. Since then she has released over twenty studio albums and supported a broad range of social causes including racial justice, reproductive rights, gender equality, environmental issues and prison reform. ... more

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