Text: Ani Difranco. Like I Said: Songs 1990-1991. Not So Soft.

In a forest of stone
Underneath the corporate canopy
Where the sun rarely filters down
The ground is not so soft, not so soft

They build buildings to house people making money
Or they build buildings to make money off of housing people
It's true, like a lot of things are true
I am foraging for a phone booth on the forest floor that is not so soft

I look up, it looks like the buildings are burning
But it's just the sun setting
The solar system calling an end
To another business day

Eternally circling, signally
The rhythmic clicking on and off of computers
The pulse of the American machine
The pulse that draws death dancing out of anonymous side streets

You know the ones that always get dumped on
And never get plowed
It draws death dancing out of little countries with funny languages
Where the ground is getting harder and it was not that soft before

Those who call the shots are never in the line of fire, why
Where there's life for hire
Out there if a flag of truth were raised we could watch every liar
Rise to wave it here

We learn America like a script
Playwright, birthright, same thing
We bring ourselves to the role
We're all rehearsing for the presidency

I always wanted to be commander in chief
Of my one woman army
But I can envision the mediocrity of my finest hour
It's the failed America in me

It's the fear that lives in a forest of stone
Underneath the corporate canopy
Where the sun rarely filters down
And the ground is not so soft