New Song

When I started this this morning it was just a silly idea I had but as I wrote it started to take on some acutal meaning. I'm still working out the melody--I had one, but realized I was absolutely ripping off Patty Griffin, so it's back to the melodic drawing board. Think: cowboy ballad in 3/4 time.

Sweetheart Deal
Emily Dunbar

3/1/07

Our parents had it rough in the wagons and tents
Poor and sore abused. One look, ten cents
Times were harder then and they did what they did
To survive and provide a better life for their kids

The travelin’ shows died and we scrambled scratched
To make a dime off our faces and the humps on our backs
We wanted the gold, but the pains to avoid
So someone pitched a story to the weekend tabloid

It was a sweetheart deal and everyone won
The Bat Boy, The Wolfman, The Cyclops Woman
The World’s Fattest Baby, the sweet Mermaid Girl
We smiled for the camera and hid from the world

We became their bread and butter. We worked out a plan
Each month one of us graced the checkout stand
The public gawked and gasped and we made out like thieves
Safe in our shelter from each taunt and tease

It was a sweetheart deal…

But times have changed again and the people don’t care
for the Boy with Fish Gills, The Girl with Spiders for Hair
They want pretty movie starlets with ugly tattoos
to have nervous breakdowns and they call it news

I used to find the old way perverse
Turn a freak into star and fill up his purse
But now they take the ones who start with it all
And pay a million dollars to watch them fall

We had a sweetheart deal and everyone won…

Now I work the drive through and nobody minds
that my fingers are webbed they say, “Hey, it takes all kinds”
But that stunning young thing who used to be on TV
They scratched her eyes out and shunned her till she felt like me

They scratched her eyes out and shunned her till she felt just like me