Her voice is like a warm, crackling fireplace in winter... So soothing.

Oh Ani. How much I love you. Such an amazing lyricist. Favorite musician by far. Changed my life. 👌💜

i've never heard her "tell" this poem without music - how amazingly POWERFUL! Thanks for this posting!

I don't do social media. I did send this link to my 20 year old daughter to explain to her the trauma of 9/11. Ani, I told my daughter that I saw you live twice, once opening for Bob Dylan, and that were my favorite feminist icon when I was in college as my daughter is now during a completely different time. I want to say that even if my daughter chooses a new icon, you're mine. I appreciate the comfort that your poems and songs give me now. Thank you.

... just seeing this now, so long after the event, ...but gosh, what well spoken and thoughtful words Ani.

I love how sometimes she seems like she's just gonna start singing. I love it. The first time I heard this song I swore I listened to it at least a million times. She's amazing.

Wow... she delivers the words so much better than I can read them.

I simply have no words to adequately meet the the sheer beauty, power and grace of Ani's poem.

I saw her perform it live in NYC for the first time. Such a powerful & stirring moment in her show.

Thank you for posting .. I was unable to make it down to see her at this!

Oh Ani you are just so great and you keep amazing me. I loved this as a song, and it sounded even better with you reading it out like you did here. You are just ... AMAZING.

Thank you. Never take this down.

She is just fantastic.

Brilliant poem.

She's amazing.

if not my favorite poem, up there in the top 5.

amazing Ani.

@Arica Brown it's on 'Living in Clip'. 2 discs of her playing live. It's excellent!

Right On.

*****Self Evident - Ani DiFranco***** "Yes, Us people are just poems We're ninety percent metaphor With a leanness of meaning Approaching hyper-distillation And once upon a time We were moonshine Rushing down the throat of a giraffe Yes, rushing down the long hallway Despite what the p.a. announcement says Yes, rushing down the long hall Down the long stairs In a building so tall That it will always be there Yes, it's part of a pair There on the bow of Noah's ark The most prestigious couple Just kickin' back parked Against a perfectly blue sky On a morning beatific In its Indian summer breeze On the day that America Fell to its knees After strutting around for a century Without saying thank you Or please And the shock was subsonic And the smoke was deafening Between the setup and the punch line Cause we were all on time for work that day We all boarded that plane for to fly And then while the fires were raging We all climbed up on the window sill And then we all held hands And jumped into the sky And every borough looked up when it heard the first blast And then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed And the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar Looked more like war than anything I've seen so far So far So far So fierce and ingenious A poetic specter so far gone That every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling Over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on And I'll tell you what, while we're at it You can keep the pentagon Keep the propaganda Keep each and every tv That's been trying to convince me To participate In some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution Perpetuate retribution Even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution Is still hanging in the air And there's ash on our shoes And there's ash in our hair And there's a fine silt on every mantle From hell's kitchen to Brooklyn And the streets are full of stories Sudden twists and near misses And soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters With tales of narrowly averted disasters And the whiskey is flowin' Like never before As all over the country Folks just shake their heads And pour So here's a toast to all the folks that live in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, El Salvador Here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation Under the stone cold gaze of Mt. Rushmore Here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors Who daily provide women with a choice Who stand down a threat the size of Oklahoma City Just to listen to a young woman's voice Here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now Awaiting the executioner's guillotine Who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads To find peace in the form of a dream, peace in the form of a dream Cause take away our PlayStations And we are a third world nation Under the thumb of some blue blood royal son Who stole the oval office and that phony election I mean It don't take a weatherman To look around and see the weather Jeb said he'd deliver Florida, folks And boy did he ever And we hold these truths to be self evident: Number one, George W. Bush is not president Number two, America is not a true democracy Number three, the media is not fooling me Cause I am a poem heeding hyper-distillation I've got no room for a lie so verbose I'm looking out over my whole human family And I'm raising my glass in a toast Here's to our last drink of fossil fuels May we vow to get off of this sauce Shoo away the swarms of commuter planes And find that train ticket we lost Cause once upon a time the line followed the river And peeked into all the backyards And the laundry was waving The graffiti was teasing us From brick walls and bridges We were rolling over ridges Through valleys Under stars I dream of touring like Duke Ellington In my own railroad car I dream of waiting on the tall blond wooden benches In a grand station aglow with grace And then standing out on the platform And feeling the air on my face Give back the night its distant whistle Give the darkness back its soul Give the big oil companies the finger finally And relearn how to rock-n-roll Yes, the lessons are all around us and the truth is waiting there So it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets And clear the air Get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand Of someone else's desert Put it back in its pants And quit the hypocritical chants of Freedom forever Cause when one lone phone rang In two thousand and one At ten after nine On nine one one Which is the number we all called When that lone phone rang right off the wall Right off our desk and down the long hall Down the long stairs In a building so tall That the whole world turned Just to watch it fall And while we're at it Remember the first time around? The bomb? The Ryder truck? The parking garage? The princess that didn't even feel the pea? Remember joking around in our apartment on Avenue D? Can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design Following a fantastical reversal of the New York skyline?! It was a joke At the time And that was just a few years ago So let the record show That the FBI was all over that case That the plot was obvious and in everybody's face And scoping that scene Religiously The CIA Or is it KGB? Committing countless crimes against humanity With this kind of eventuality As its excuse For abuse after expensive abuse And it didn't have a clue Look, another window to see through Way up here On the hundredth and fourth floor Look Another key Another door Ten percent literal Ninety percent metaphor Three thousand some poems disguised as people On an almost too perfect day Must be more than pawns In some asshole's passion play So now it's your job And it's my job To make it that way To make sure they didn't die in vain Ssh Baby listen Hear the train?"

Powerful.

YES

Nothing could bring back that time more fully than this poem. The surreal sympathetic horror of that day, and the political era it was in, when a Republican usurper of the White House then used and abused America's trauma to launch us into a war against an uninvolved country that his oil industry friends and donors had wanted into for years. She abbreviated that part of it for sure, as it was mostly about that day. But I'm glad she painted that context into the picture that this poem drew.

Some of the comments on this video dishearten me. I can only assume that the majority of comments are from young people, who don't remember 9/11 and the OKC bombing and the highly dubious US government involvement in both events.

i think it's funny she's reading from the book, considering she could probably recite this in her sleep.

can you buy the book in australia yet

Well she's had worse "do"s. Brilliant poem. It must be kind of strange for her not to be interrupted every few seconds by screaming fans!

We've been bullies the world over for more than 100 years. It doesn't absolve tragedies against us, but it definitely explains it. If we, and the British, and Russia, and any other western power that decided Afghanistan, and the rest of the Middle East would be far better off as part of a greater empire, or at least made useful by its resources - if we had just left them alone and not bullied, coup'd them, and throttled them, yeah we probably wouldn't have had plenty of tragedies.

what book is this amazing poem from?

Respond to this video... Cause I can give you a list

ani is spitting lihop in that poem (let it happen on purpose) bout 911...id prefer mihop (made it happen on purpose)

I saw her do a reading in DC in November. She seemed the same way. She said that having a baby, "broke her ego." As well as her tail bone apparently...

all she needs is a black wardrobe, and black lenses, and some candles, dim lights, and ppl snapping there fingers!!!after she recites

She changes her hair all the time.

I think she's just quiet because she had problems with her voice.

How can you not care if babies are killed but then get upset about the death penalty?

@nicepeoplenicepeople

7 жыл бұрын

Bethany Michaela Jones I know this is six years late but I just thought I'd point out that she said "providing women with a choice" not necessarily in support of baby murder but in support of freewill and free choice

@NoRmAsJeAnS82

5 жыл бұрын

Bethany Michaela Jones It’s about having the CHOICE. Do what you want with your body.

@markw4206

Жыл бұрын

Because "babies" aren't killed in abortion. Embryos and fetuses aren't babies. Sorry about your poor high school education.

The politics of this poem are reprehensible and wrong. It was American troops on Saudi soil that motivated Bin Laden to begin his war on America, but that doesn't fit the narrative as well as El Salvador does so the complicated truth doesn't feature, just a clichéd blame game that says 9/11 was all America's fault and if you only left al Qaeda alone then they'd leave you alone; except you tried leaving them alone and they still attacked you.