Polaroids (Live)

[Intro]

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Shawn Colvin

Thank you

[Verse 1]

Please no more therapy

Mother take care of me

And piece me together

With a needle and thread

Wrap me in eiderdown

Lace from your wedding gown

Fold me and lay me down

On your bed

Or liken me to a shoe

Blackened and spit-shone through

Kicking back home to you

Smiling back home

Just singing back home to you

Laughing back home to you

Dragging back home to you

[Verse 2]

I was so wary then

The ugly American

Thinner than oxygen

Tough as a whore

I said you can lie to me

I own what's inside of me

And nothing surprises me anymore

But forests in Germany

And kids in the Tuileries

Broken-down fortresses

In old Italy

And claiming his victory

Shrouded in mystery

He went running away with me

[Verse 3]

Back in our home New York

Walking these streets forlorn

We all in our uniforms

Black and black

Doing that slouch and jive

The artist must survive

We've got all we need we cried

And we don't look back

And thinking we had it made

Poised for the hit parade

Knee deep in accolades

The conceptual pair

Oh, but ever the malcontent

He left without incident

Vanished into thin air

[Verse 4]

Now I am always amazed

That words can fill up a page

And pages fill up the days

Between him and me

But the vows that we never keep

From bedrooms to business-speak

They make me remember how cheap

Words can be

And the letters I wrote you of

They were those of the desperate stuff

Like begging for love in a suicide threat

But I am too young to die

Too old for a lullaby

Too tired for life on the ledge

[Verse 5]

But I had a dream last night

Of lovers who walked the plank

Out on the edge of time

Amidst ridicule

And they laughed as they rocked and reeled

Over the mining fields

Coming to rest on this ship of fools

And he just took polaroids

Of her smile in the light

Of the dawn of the menacing sky

And before they went overboard

She turned and held up a card

And it said Valentine