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0:00/3:03
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Rewrite The Ending 3:400:00/3:40
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Back In The Pool 2:360:00/2:36
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Here In My Bones 4:040:00/4:04
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Time Of Trouble 3:000:00/3:00
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0:00/3:38
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0:00/3:04
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Thank You, Elizabeth 3:220:00/3:22
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One Of Us 3:470:00/3:47
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0:00/4:33
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0:00/3:44
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12 Going Home 2:590:00/2:59
LYRICS
Complete Album Lyrics from Rewrite the Ending by Ina May Wool
1. Going Through the Pictures
I’m going through the pictures from all the years
It’s time to make some space and travel on
How did I wear my skirts so short, my heels so high?
How did I lose the love there in your eyes?
I don’t know but it’s time to go
Been living with these pictures for all these years
I see you there but were you already gone?
We kept it all so blurry/that’s the alibi
Was every smiling face another lie?
I don’t know but it’s time to go
It’s time to go past the edges of the photographs
It’s time to go where I am not sure
It’s time to move out of the album and get real again
It’s time to heal again
I’m going through the pictures of all those years
Tryin to make my peace and carry on
How could we once have been so young and ignorant?
Hey look we’re on the couch with arms and legs entwined
Smiling at the camera
Why was I so sure that you were mine?
I don’t know but it’s time to go
2. Rewrite the Ending
The beginning of my book is over and done
Much too late for me to die young
Not much I can do about Chapter One
But i can rewrite the ending
After blue Chapter 2, Chapter 3’s pretty tame
But I’m adding an index and I’m taking names
i’ve done lots of research but I’m not ashamed
I’m gonna rewrite the ending
Chapter 4 is surprising, Chapter 5’s a hot mess
Chapter numbers keep rising
How high they go
is anyone’s guess
Gonna come to a grand conclusion
Give that plot a twist
After all my confusion
I think I might just be getting the gist
I keep writing my story a little more every day
Never thought I’d ever have quite so much to say
It’s a true new life story of an old Ina May
And I’m gonna rewrite the ending
Hey boys I’m working on the ending
Hey girls it’s a brand new ending
I’m gonna rewrite the ending
3. Back in the Pool
everybody back in the pool
we’re gonna swim a little bit
everybody playin it cool
out on a limb a little bit
roly poly oh no is that me
holy moly not what I wanna be
i decided to dip a toe
thought i would let you know
i’m back in the pool
everybody back in the car
we’ll motorvate down that hill
everybody you know who you are
we can’t stand so still
dilly dally whatchoo waiting for
shilly shally can’t wait anymore
gettin' back into some kind of lane
even if we are half insane
get back in the pool
everybody gettin so old
if you get to live
everybody gettin so old
consider the alternative
everybody back on the ice
we’re gonna skate a little bit
fall down once
get up twice
might be late a little bit
but topsy turvey it’s a mixed up world
shmopsey shmurvey you’re a grown up girl
shilly shally dilly dally
back in the pool
roly poly holy moly
everybody’s a fool
slippin up on the ice
gettin up way more than twice
BACK IN THE POOL
4. Here in My Bones
here in my bones
my battered bones
i can feel new mobility
sleeping lightly about to wake
here in my bones
and in my ligaments
i have taken all the pretty pills
i need to take
scalpel wielders
queenly nurses
PT pilots
are bringing this baby in
severed nerves
reconnecting
muscles tight but
loosening up again
here in my bones
my mended bones
I can feel new agility
wheelchair wranglers
angel strangers
cooks and writers
bringing me back again
knees and ankles
finally bending
hard time ending
softening up again
here in my bones
my splendid bones
i can feel the joy I used to feel
welling up again/here in my bones
5. Time of Trouble
in this time of trouble
in this age of grief
in this world of woe and pain
where every day’s a thief
it’s a drop of water
on a desert floor
oh I know it’s not enough
I know we need more
but I am grateful for
a kindness
a smile
a moment of truth
amidst a storm of lies
even a mirage
of shelter
under cruel desert skies
the way you listen….
6. Cigarettes and Chocolate Candy
Cigarettes and chocolate candy
That means Mom to me
She kept watching Frank Sinatra
and Sid Caesar on TV
She was a rebel
Never quite got free
Went to art school
on the streetcar
Still she lived at home
Never moved out
'til she married
Never lived alone
She loved Rembrandt
and Picasso
Andy Warhol too
She kept drawing
She loved painting
'til age 92
Cigarettes and chocolate candy....
Fifty dollars at the grocery
Kept us all alive
She got dinner on the table
Every night at five
She sewed curtains
She sewed dresses
Painted pictures too
And she lay down
with a headache
every afternoon
Cigarettes and chocolate candy...
She'd get so angry/started yelling/drove the car away fast
Where’s mummy going?/I don’t know/She always comes back
Cigarettes and chocolate candy….
7. Rachel Tells the Story
No one ever tells it the way she does
She tells that story right
History’s a mystery - what is, what was
Until she shines a light
I get so crazy with all this mess
The whole world’s hazy I must confess
But Rachel tells the story the way she does
And then I feel all right
When the world is spinning
Bout twice as fast
As it’s supposed to be
Rachel tells the story
And spins it back
Til it makes sense to me
I get so woozy from truthiness
It’s a news doozy - it’s mega stress
But Rachel tells the story the way she does
And then I feel all right
Why is this happening?
Why are we learning this now?
you always seem to know
I don’t know how (you do it)
I get so crazy with all the mess
the whole world’s hazy it’s mega stress
but Rachel tells the story the way she does
And then I feel all right
8. Thank You, Elizabeth
O Elizabeth
Thank you for all the pinkie swears
Thank you showing how much you care
to all the little girls
growing up in this political freak show
O Elizabeth thank you for everything that you do
Thank you for being exactly you
Thank you for being as smart as you are when stupid
seems to rule the day
Thank you for the stories (all) about your mom and dad
Thank you for the stories of the hard times that you had
Thank you for your plan and the other plan and the other plan after that
You roll up your sleeves
And you get to work
And you persevere
no matter what they throw your way
and they throw everything your way/hey hey
O Elizabeth thank you for tryin to save democracy
shining a light on kleptocracy
thank you for breaking it down for folks like me
BREAKDOWN …Thank you for the stories….
You roll up yr sleeves…
O, Elizabeth!
Thank you for fighting! Thank you for trying to save democracy!
Shining a light on the kleptocracy! Thank you for being exactly you!
I just wanted to say - Thank you, Elizabeth
9. One of Us
Woke up without you wondering how I could feel grateful
Made a cup of coffee/Drank it by myself
Last night was bitter/Last night was hateful
Might just leave that all to somebody else
You pulled the rug right out from under us
I’m thinking now I might not need that old rug so much
I thought we had forever love/That makes one of us (2x)
Drove myself to work still all up in my head
Made a couple phone calls/Staring at the screen
Last night we said things should never be said
And when you say you can’t decide I don’t know what you mean
Cause you pulled the rug right out from under us
You say you didn’t mean to/Thank you very much
I thought we had forever love/That makes one of us (2x)
One of us who waited night after night
One of us who ran away but would not step aside
You pulled the rug right out from under us
I know I’ll land on my feet/I’ve been through times this tough
But who wants to live in a world without love?
That makes none of us (2x)
I turn out the light/and realize I’m feeling grateful
But if you think it’s ok to throw our love away
That makes one of us (2x)
10. Lincoln on the Streets of New York
Sha sha my mother said
Too many thoughts for a young girl’s head
Too bad you’re not a boy instead
We can’t afford this candle
So I went to where all my sisters slept
Felt round for the secret box I kept
With my shoeshine gear, as my mother wept
And I crept out of the window
There in the alley put my hair up tight
Underneath a cap in the moon half light
Headed uptown because tonight
There’s a crowd for Lincoln at the Union
Chorus: Hey hey the pauper and the king
The wind and the rain
the watch and the spring
You can make some money
You can find anything
On the streets of New York City
I set up on the sidewalk as the snow began
and I called my wares to every passing man
I can shine your boots if anyone can
And I can do it better
Then a ragged tall thin man I did spy
With a terrible sadness in his eye
Since my own father these five long years died
Haven’t seen such a kind man ever
Bridge: He said he’d take a shine from me
He knew he wasn’t much to see
But these city folks would have to be
Told a thing or two
Then he asked me if I would go inside
Said he needed to see a friendly eye
In a voice so soft, almost terrified
And he walked me in beside him
Cho: Hey hey the pauper and the king…
So I brought my box and I sat on it
Heard the words he said, felt the fire he lit
First the thunder, then the lightning hit
I was changed forever
Cho: Hey hey the pauper and the king…you can be anything
It was in eighteen hundred and sixty-five
With my union musket by my side
In my uniform of blue and a tear in my eyes
I watched as they bore him slowly by
On the streets on the streets on the streets of New York City
Hey hey the pauper and the king….
11. Out Past Yesterday
I miss all the yellow houses
Filled with other people’s memories
I miss the trellis where Edie’s roses grow
I miss the raucous nights
Around the table in the big house
Making family out of folks that we don’t know
I miss the slow unwind of history
told in stories out on porches
in the afternoons when clocks are running slow
and the hot reveal of summer
as loons come in for a landing
in the stillness where the water lilies grow
Out past yesterday
Far beyond tomorrow
in the slow repeating always of the now
I miss the ripples on the surface
when wind rises in the evening
and the thunder clouds blow in above the lake
The leaves begin to tremble
as the children come in running
and the storm gods take whatever they can take
Out past yesterday…
I miss Bob driving us to dinner
taking curves upward of 60
Coltrane louder than the living in the van
I miss the silence of the night
when it’s hiding from the morning
the Milky Way so cool above the land
Out past yesterday
Far beyond tomorrow
in the slow repeating always of the now
12. Going Home
No walls, no windows
No covers, no pillows
No fathers, no brothers
No sisters, no mothers
Home
One by one
All together
All alone
We're going home
No basements, no ceilings
No standing up, no kneeling
No hands, no faces
No awkward words, no graces
Home
One by one
All together
All alone...
Home
to where the heart is
To all the heavens and the hells
of our hereafter
There is no sadness
There is no laughter
We're going home
No sorrow, no elation
No pain, no sensation
No mistakes, no secret places
No loneliness, no fond embraces
Home one by one…
Home