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Sisterly

from Sisterly by Jean Rohe

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    Comes in an eco-friendly paperboard case with an 8-panel accordion-folded custom lyric booklet with illustrations by Thais Beltrame. Download code included for the digital album.

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lyrics

Sisterly

Home alone, the first warm night
The beginning of the season for neighborhood street fights
I coulda stopped him, called the police
I coulda courageously brought my trash down to the street

I don't know what it was all about
I heard something about sex, something about “Lemme hear you shout”
And from the window in a street lamp round
I see him pull her hair, he chokes her and drags her down

Oh, for shame, for shame, for shame, for shame on me
In the game, the game of fuck and fight and flee
In the name, the name, the name of “it wasn't me,”
Well, tonight I'll take the blame

Now, I'm not known for being sisterly
Let the strong girls win and cut the weak ones free
The boys lie, they say the boys are mean
Said I better get myself a spot on the boys' team

Because the boys know how to win the day
Bathed in blood, they built our world that way
I got the phone, I'm standing in the hall
Every man for herself; I never made that call

Oh, for shame, for shame, for shame, for shame on me
In the game, the game of fuck and fight and flee
In the name, the name, the name of “it wasn't me,”
Well, tonight I'll take

The blame

Now a song is a leaky paper cup, it can't hold it all
Thought I should call the police but then I thought again
Quick on the draw, kings of the law,
Ain't nobody gonna ask them
To keep the peace for us

One violence or another
If I'm not sisterly, well, they sure ain't no brother to each other
Watch 'em frisking the boys on Nostrand Avenue,
frisking all the kids on Nostrand Avenue
So before you judge me,
tell me exactly what number you think I shoulda been dialing
When they got a cage for every kid up at Rikers Island
And they got a key for every cage for every kid up at Rikers Island
[And maybe there's a bullet in the head]
They got a special cage for this girl down on the street
fighting back fiercely in front of me,
you know a song is a leaky paper cup, it's a leaky paper cup
it can't hold it all

And it leaks into my dreams; you know,
if I had it all to do again I'd come down into the street and stand
Between every fist, between every face and every hand
that ever met, even if it broke alla my bones
Instead, I come to you with this soggy vessel,
this leaky paper cup
And the memory of a girl who fought it out alone.

Oh, for shame, for shame, for shame, for shame on me
In the game, the game of fuck and fight and flee
In the name, the name, the name of “it wasn't me,”
Well, tonight I'll take
the blame

credits

from Sisterly, released November 2, 2018

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Jean Rohe Brooklyn, New York

Jean Rohe writes one-of-a-kind narrative songs, concerned as much with the interior lives of her narrators as with the wider world outside them. She is a 2022 Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant recipient. Her latest full-length record as a bandleader, "Sisterly," won best Adult Contemporary Album at the Independent Music Awards in 2019. ... more

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