Artist: ani difranco
Song: my i q
Album: Puddle Dive
Year: 1993
When I was four years old, they tried to test my I.Q.
They showed me a picture of 3 oranges and a pear
They said, "Which one is different? It does not belong"
They taught me different is wrong
But when I was 13 years old
I woke up one morning
Thighs covered in blood
Like a war, like a warning
That I live in a breakable takeable body
An ever-increasingly valuable body
That a woman had come in the night to replace me
Deface me
See, my body is borrowed
Yeah, I got it on loan
For the time in between my mom and some maggots
I don't need anyone to hold me, I can hold my own
I got highways for stretch marks
See where I've grown
I sing sometimes like my life is at stake
'Cause you're only as loud as the noises you make
I'm learning to laugh as hard as I can listen
'Cause silence is violence in women and poor people
If more people were screaming, then I could relax
But a good brain ain't diddley
If you don't have the facts
We live in a breakable, takeable world
An ever available possible world
And we can make music
Like we can make do
Genius is in a back beat
Backseat to nothing if you're dancing
Especially something stupid like I.Q.
For every lie I unlearn, I learn something new
I sing sometimes for the war that I fight
'Cause every tool is a weapon
If you hold it right