“Cowboy Kind of Woman” 

I want to be a straight-talking, fast-walking,

Tobacco-spitting, tattoo-getting,

Motorcycle driving, highway riding,

Honky tonking, barroom brawling…

Well, I want to be a cowboy kind of woman

I’ll try and talk a little too loud and get along with the lowdown crowd

But y’all got room for one more cowboy kind of woman?

A cowboy woman, a cowboy woman! 

A cowboy woman, a cowboy woman!

I want to be a straight-walking, fast-talking,

Desert-drifting’, bottle-smashing —

Don’t call me a cowgirl, I ain’t your gal —

Bareback-riding, no-time-biding…

Well, I want to be a cowboy kind of woman

I’ll try and talk a little too loud and get along with the lowdown crowd

But y’all got room for one more cowboy kind of woman?

A cowboy woman, a cowboy woman! 

A cowboy woman, a cowboy woman!

I’ll try and talk a little too loud and get along with the lowdown crowd

But y’all got room for one more cowboy kind of woman?

But I’m just another do-right kind of woman

“When I See the Jordan”

Mama told me about the desert where the Israelites roamed

And that desert is where I’m bound to go

I know that’s where they suffered and many died

They saw no lily of the valley, not with earthly eyes

But when I see the Jordan, feel its cool river flow

When I see the Jordan I’ll know I’m headed home

Home

I have dreamt of its plains, of its waters and its trees

And I will dream of that desert until its sands I see

When I see the Jordan, feel its cool river flow

When I see the Jordan I’ll know I’m headed home

Home

“Brother, Sister, Two of One Kind”

You’re Virginia in autumn, Charlottesville in the rain

Camel cigarettes, unending pain

That red Tercel, it was a 1993

We tooled around, for once just you and me

Your life and mine, fundamentally intertwined

Brother, sister, two of one kind

The tie is severed but these are the ties that bind

One is lost, the other left behind

I saw Dune in the theater with my college friends

They didn’t like it but I went and saw it again

Timothee Chalamet seemed so young at 25

But that’s about the age you were when you died

Your life and mine, fundamentally intertwined

Brother, sister, two of one kind

The tie is severed but these are the ties that bind

One is lost, the other left behind

I think maybe we’d have been anarchists together

Denied the government and all modern technology

Maybe we’d have come together on our own

Just two old friends who talk on the phone

Your life and mine, fundamentally intertwined

Brother, sister, two of one kind

The tie is severed but these are the ties that bind

One is lost, the other left behind

“Real Man's Daughter”

See “The Paterfamilias.”

“Plow Song”

I’ll work these fields until I die, just like my fathers before me

I’ll work these fields until the day He comes for me in glory

From this weary world I’ll flee

And His marked hands I’ll see

Here I’ve seen the lilies grow and die in the winter

But to a land I go where lilies die no longer

From this weary world I’ll flee

And His markèd hands I’ll see

Bury me next to my brother and my mother too

There they lie with my grandfather and I will lie there too

From this weary world I’ll flee

And His markèd hands I’ll see

From this wicked world I’ll flee

And I’ll tread those golden streets

From this weary world I’ll flee

“Yellow Sweater”

A little yellow sweater 

With sleeves not too long

And a collar that is ribbed

Inside its threads I would live

When I get that sweater

Things will be as they should

When I get that yellow sweater

My life will be good

Maybe I’ll sit in an English garden

On a great and old estate

With follies and ancient oak trees

All of which from tall glass windows can be seen

Or I’ll be a 1990s dream queen

Draw attention with a wit so keen

And dark hooded eyes

I’ll stand under street lamps and cry

When I get that sweater

Things will be as they should

When I get that yellow sweater

My life will be good

I’ll travel along

Riding subways and trains

With my film camera and my analog watch

I’ll cross Europe with peering eyes and pensive thought

Or I’ll be a folk singer

Greenwich Village, 1963

With a big black coat pulled tight against the cold

I’ll argue about Tolstoy and poems of old

When I get that sweater

Things will be as they should

When I get that yellow sweater

My life will be good

When I get that yellow sweater

My life will be good

“Oh to Love the Suwannee”

I want to live in New York City with a fire escape or write for the movies out in LA

My little life will never be enough for me

I’ve already left town but I want to get farther—get far, far away from the swamps and the water

Even though in my dreams they call my name

Not sure I got a home—no, no, not really—from Virginia down to Florida then up the coast to Philly

Maybe next it’ll be Vienna or Tennessee

Oh, to live a glorious life

To love the mockingbird and the bird of paradise

Oh, to live a glorious life

But love the Suwannee and let it suffice

I drive past Cassadaga on a regular Tuesday, got existence on my mind

I wonder what it’s all for and if this will be my life

‘Cause I want to be the next Steve Martin or the next John Wayne, want all kinds of people to know my name

And be interviewed from my Bel Air home in my old age

I want to do it for the memories, want to do it for the stories, want to do it for the worldly, transient glory

Though I figure it’s little to do with eternity

Oh, to live a glorious life

To love the mockingbird and the bird of paradise

Oh, to live a glorious life

But love the Suwannee and let it suffice

I want to know what the mountaintops feel like in the heavens, wonder what it’d be like if the earth took my skin,

If I pressed my hand into a tree and never moved again

But still I dream of ivory towers and a well-lit stage, I dream of the rivers up in Washington state

Wish my own could satisfy me

Oh, to live a glorious life

To love the mockingbird and the bird of paradise

Oh, to live a glorious life

But love the Suwannee and let it suffice

I want to live in New York City with a fire escape or write for the movies out in LA

“Florida Song”

Old sand roads shaded under trees

Orange groves, crystalline streams

Pale pink houses and seedy motels

Bent live oaks even hurricanes couldn’t fell

Sun showers and wicked storms

Blue green waters and all the life they’ve borne

The land of marshes where the St. Johns winds away

Where it’s always hot so summer never quite fades

The land of palmettos a-shiver in the breeze

Where Spanish moss hangs from the trees

Mockingbirds above, alligators beneath

Panthers and cranes in between

Snakes that slither in the dead grass

A great frontier, America’s last

The land of marshes where the St. Johns winds away

Where it’s always hot so summer never quite fades

The land of palmettos a-shiver in the breeze

Where Spanish moss hangs from the trees

The little school in the backwoods

Where the Baptist church and its white steeple stood

Now it’s strip malls and cookie cutter neighborhoods

And sinkholes that try to swallow them for good

Someday soon it may all be gone

And your kids and mine won’t sail the St. Johns

‘Cause it’s the land of beaches where Jimmy Buffet plays

Where it’s always hot so summer never quite fades

The land of marshes where all those rivers wind away

The vicious land where I spent my young days

“The Paterfamilias”

My hand rests on his chest, rings glitter on my fingers

Now they have grown long, so feminine as they linger

His arm is around me, we’re pressed casually close

It’s wrapped right ‘round my shoulders—real domestic, I suppose

And a therapist would say that it all comes from my father

‘Cause I don’t know what it’s like to be a real man’s daughter

I’ll write the thank you cards and he’ll carry the wood

I’ll bear the children who won’t question if he’s good

I’ll take him to meet my mother and I’ll show him my hometown

We’ll drive ‘round central Florida, see the malls and ruined ground

And a therapist would say that it all comes from my father

‘Cause I don’t know what it’s like to be a real man’s daughter

All the good men I know have wives and daughters of their own

With them I share no blood, no bone

He won’t drink whiskey, no whiskey, wine, nor gin

And we’ll spend time in the country, warm with kith and kin

And a therapist would say that it all comes from my father

‘Cause I don’t know what it’s like to be a real man’s daughter

Perhaps one day I’ll meet this man, who’ll listen and will hold my hand 

And we’ll get ourselves a little piece of land

There I’m standing next to him and I’m smaller in comparison

Rhododendrons are in bloom—oh, perpetual June

And a therapist would say that it all comes from my father

‘Cause I don’t know what it’s like to be a real man’s daughter

And any therapist would say that it all comes from my father

‘Cause I don’t know what it’s like to be a real man’s daughter

All lyrics written by Matti Veldhuis.