Parameters

Song Parameters
Artist Ani DiFranco
Album Knuckle Down

Lyrics

[00:00.00] ani difranco - parameters
[00:15.12]
[00:17.12]
[00:19.12] thirty-three years go by
[00:20.42] and not once do you come home
[00:21.45] to find a man sitting in your bedroom
[00:24.78] that is
[00:25.53] a man you don't know
[00:26.72] who came a long way to deliver one very specific message:
[00:31.94] lock your back door, you idiot
[00:34.17] however invincible you imagine yourself to be
[00:36.86] you are wrong
[00:37.85]
[00:48.41] thirty-three years go by
[00:49.83] and you loosen the momentum of teenage nightmares
[00:53.20] your breasts hang like a woman's
[00:55.28] and you don't jump at shadows anymore
[00:58.33] instead you may simply pause to admire
[01:00.53] those that move with the grace of trees
[01:02.76] dancing past streetlights
[01:06.21] and you walk through your house without turning on lamps
[01:09.18] sure of the angle from door to table
[01:11.35] from table to staircase
[01:13.32] sure of the number of steps
[01:15.02] seven to the landing
[01:16.16] two to turn right
[01:17.79] then seven more
[01:19.34] sure you will stroll serenely on the moving walkway of memory
[01:23.71] across your bedroom
[01:24.70] and collapse with a sigh onto your bed
[01:27.65] shoes falling
[01:28.82] thunk thunk
[01:29.89] onto the floor
[01:30.94] and there will be no strange man
[01:32.85] suddenly all that time sitting there
[01:35.37] sitting there on what must be the prize chair
[01:38.04] in your collection of uncomfortable chairs
[01:40.69] with a wild look in his eyes
[01:42.31] and hands that you cannot see
[01:43.83] holding what?
[01:44.68] you do not know
[01:45.77]
[01:51.77] so sure are you of the endless drumming rhythm of your isolation
[01:56.29] that you are painfully slow to adjust
[02:00.33] if only because
[02:01.73] yours is not that genre of story
[02:05.39] still and again, life cannot muster the stuff of movies
[02:09.25] no bullets shattering glass
[02:11.31] instead fear sits patiently
[02:14.02] fear almost smiles when you finally see him
[02:16.59] though you have kept him waiting for thirty-three years
[02:19.39] and now he has let himself in
[02:21.11] and he has brought you fistfuls of teenage nightmares
[02:24.02] though you think you see, in your naivete
[02:26.48] that he is empty handed
[02:27.69] and this brings you great relief
[02:30.15] at the time
[02:31.39]
[02:35.82] new as you are, really, to the idea that
[02:38.78] even after you've long since gotten used to the parameters
[02:41.76] they can all change
[02:43.52] while you're out one night having a drink with a friend
[02:45.83] some big hand may be turning a big dial
[02:48.79] switching channels on your dreams
[02:50.59] until you find yourself lost in them
[02:53.10] and watching your daily life with the sound off
[02:58.71] and of course having cautiously turned down
[03:01.24] the flame under your eyes
[03:03.28] there are more shadows around everything
[03:05.71] your vision a dim flashlight
[03:07.30] that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse
[03:10.51] your solitude elevating itself like the spirit of the dead
[03:14.32] presiding over your supposed repose
[03:17.49] not really sleep at all
[03:19.45] just a sleeping position and a series of suspicious sounds
[03:23.55] a clanking pipe
[03:24.92] a creaking branch
[03:25.95] the footfalls of a cat
[03:28.49]
[03:37.58] all of this and maybe
[03:39.56] the swish of the soft leather of your intruder's coat
[03:43.22] as you walk him step by step back to the door
[03:46.53] having talked him down off the ledge of a very bad idea
[03:50.70] soft leather, big feet, almond eyes
[03:53.77] the kinds of details the police officer would ask for later
[03:56.95] with his clipboard
[03:58.38] and his pistol
[03:59.77] in your hallway
[04:01.18]
[04:29.05]
[04:52.10]
[05:09.36]
[05:54.37] end