Ani DiFranco - J (10.01.2010) New Orleans video free download

Ani DiFranco performs an unreleased song born in Louisiana during the BP oil spill.

Blue Nile Balcony Room, New Orleans, LA

can't sit on my porch and smoke a jay

and remember how peaceful life can be

but all night long are a bunch of pushers

selling drugs right there on my TV

drugs that whether or not i buy

are gonna end up in my water supply

along with who knows what else, who knows when,

just gotta take a deep breath and drink it in

around here there's one thing people know

it's that government ain't there for you, it's all for show

and i'm trying to tell them it don't have to be so

but i can understand that their confidence is low

cos round here the people're so high they can't see

over the tops of the tall pine trees

down to the mouth of the mississippi

oh, blood ignited in a blighted sky

oh, blood on the water like we all could die

blood in the reeds glistening in the sun

blood on our hands, each and everyone,

here in the calm before the wars

when the earth shrugs us off like dinosaurs

here in the sunset days of yore

the first signs washing ashore

******

goddess, come and lift us here in deepest louisianne

in the gut, where hunches come from

a message goes out loud as it can

******

you'd have thought we'd have come more far somehow

since the changing of the guard and all

i mean dude could be FDR right now

and instead he's just shifting his weight

the disappointment is a knockout blow

filmed in torturous slow-mo

oh "hope", please come where i can see

don't let the poison get the best of me

well, truth is for telling, truth is foretold

truth is for those with the guts to behold

we got vampires down here in louisianne

we need voodoo dolls, we need talismen

we need wooden crosses set alight

we need harbingers riding thru the night

we need fountain pens, we need whale harpoons

to overthrow the oil tycoons

cos there's no fish in the water, no birds in the sky

no life in the soil, no end to the lie

no time like the present and it's passing us by

but it's never too late, never too late to try

cuz if we all had to change, we all just would

and we would move closer and that would be good

and we would buy local and we would buy less

and we would realize that wasn't our happiness

no, that wasn't our happiness