Old Old Song Lyrics - Revelling / Reckoning - Ani Difranco

i'll sing you a song that starts out descriptive 

and locates a time and a place 

like a dinner table where a whole family 

is just sitting down to say grace 

an old old song that moves into action 

taking its sweet sweet time 

and waits until we all say amen 

again and again in rhyme 

it's the story of a father and a mother 

who battle each other over nothin' 

with a couple of kids trying to figure 

which way the plot's spinning 

who's winning and who is bluffing 

it's a story as common as a penny, son 

it ain't really worth anything to anyone 

poor little sore little song 

that aches like a muscle each time that it moves 

sad little song that you play 

and you play and you play 

and you play 'til you lose 

while history is outside writing a recipe book 

for every earthly pain 

this song is inside finger painting dark swirls 

again and again and they all look the same 

'cause what if you come home from school one day 

and you find your whole family's at war 

and there's this ominous silence just waiting to be broken 

and there's secret places for hiding underneath the floorboards 

and everyone seems to be bracing 

for the subharmonic thunder of the next bomb 

and everyone seems to be waiting for the cops to bust in 

with their guns drawn 

at the bleak light of dawn 

it's a story as common as a penny, son 

i don't think it's worth anything to anyone