Why is it that as we grow older and stronger
The roadsigns point us adrift and make us afraid?
Saying 'You never can win.' 'Watch your back.' 'Where's your husband?'
I don't like the signs that the signmakers make.
So I'm gonna steal out with my paints and my brushes.
I'll change the directions -- I'll hit every street.
It's the Tinseltown scandal, the Robin Hood vandal,
She goes out and steals the King's English.
And in the morning you wake up and the signs point to you.
They say "I'm so glad that you finally made it here.
You thought nobody cared, but I did, I could tell."
And "This is your year."
And "It always starts here."
And "Oh, aren't you aging well?."
Oh, I know a woman with a collection of sticks.
She could fight back the hundreds of voices she heard.
She could poke at the greed, she could fend off her need,
And with anger she found she could pound every word.
But one voice came through and caught her up by surprise,
It said "Don't hold us back, we're the story you'll tell."
And no sooner than spoken the spell had been broken,
And the voices before her were trumpets and timpanies,
Violins, basses, and woodwinds and cellos.
Singing "We're so glad that you finally made it here.
You thought nobody cared, but we did, we could tell.
And now you'll dance through the days while the orchestra plays,
And oh, aren't we aging well?"
Now when I was fifteen, oh, I knew it was over.
The road to enchantment was not mine to take
'Cause lower calf, upper arm should be half what they are.
I was breaking the laws that the signmakers make.
And all I could eat was the poisonous apple
And that's not a story I was meant to survive,
And I was all out of choices, but the woman of voices,
She turned round the corner with music around her,
She gave me the language that keeps me alive.
She said "I'm so glad that you finally made it here.
With the things you know now, that only time can tell.
Looking back, seeing far, landing right where we are,
And oh, I am aging,
And oh, you are aging,
And oh, aren't we aging well?"
©1997 Dar Williams
I saw Dar Williams in
concert tonight. It was very, very good, despite a horrible drive up
to the city through traffic and accidents and rabid baseball fans.
She did some new songs, all of which were good, and a fair selection of
my favourites, although of course not all of them. She'll be back in
the area in October, and I do indeed plan to see her again.
And thank you, Heather Gardener, for singing "When I Was a Boy"
and "You're Aging Well" to me in August almost a year ago.
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