Lyrics J - Ani DiFranco

Can't sit on my porch and smoke a J
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

And 'round 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

'Cause 'round here 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

And goddess
Come and lift us her in deepest Louisiana
In the gut, where hunches come from
A message goes out loud as it can

And 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

And the disappointment is the 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

And goddess
Come and lift us here in deepest Louisiana
In the gut, where hunches come from
A message goes out loud as it can

Of truth is for telling, truth is foretold
Truth is for those with the guts to behold
We got vampires down here in Louisiana
We need voodoo dolls, we need talisman

We need wooden stakes and shards of light
We need harbingers riding through the night
We need fountain pens, we need whale harpoons
To overthrow the oil tycoons

Cause 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

'Cause 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'd realize that wasn't our happiness

No, that wasn't our happiness
No, that wasn't our happiness
No, that wasn't our happiness
No, that wasn't

And goddess
Come and lift us here in deepest Louisiana
And goddess
Come and lift us here in deepest Louisiana

And goddess
Come and lift us here in deepest Louisiana
In the gut, where hunches come from
A message goes out loud as it can