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



cuz 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