ani's various stories on stage

"this is a song i wrote when me and a friend were hitch hiking around mexico. she called me up like a couple days before christmas and said she was hopping trains. well, you know, she's like this big bodacious blonde babe about 25 years old, and she put on her best train hoppin' shoes and was heading towards el paso and called me from... you know, wherever you call somebody from when your hopping a train. it was kinda before the cell phone revolution, so i don't really know. but, she called me up and said, 'you gotta meet me in el paso. we gotta go to mexico for christmas.' so, what do you say? ... ok. you know, so i said 'ok.' when you are hopping trains, your not really working with a tight schedule, so i got down there, and our plan was to meet at the bridge... we were gonna meet at the foot of the bridge at sunset. you know, some sunset. so, i showed up the first night, and i guess it was a little hopeful on her part, cause she didn't show up. and it was like christmas eve at this point. and all the priests were coming up to me and inviting me to their church for christmas dinner along with all the other hoodlums. so, she showed up just in time to walk across the bridge and have a crazy christmas adventure. we didn't really get down to the really romantic part. we were kinda just hitching deeper and deeper into the dust... and we developed this system. well, there was no lack of guys to chat with. yeah... everywhere we went, bang bang, there were our dates. 'oh, you must be our dates.' so, we started developing this unspoken system. the first thing that the fellas would ask is what our names were. so, they were different things depending upon what we thought of these particular men. you know, the first person to answer would kind of set the vibe. like,it would either be ..these guys are creeps.. and she would say 'mickey.' and i would say 'jo jo.' and we would be this stony faced dyke couple like 'get away. don't even think about it.' or if they were like really cute and if one of us had our panties all up in a twitch, then she would be mona, and i would be ginger. and then if they just seemed really cool, and it was going to be time to exchange phone numbers really quick, then we would just be sean.. and ani. it was a wild and wooly time."

"ok, i have a little story i wanted to tell you. let's see...where does this story begin? our story begins in buffalo. this little 17 year old chick found herself in a little predicament...in a big one actually...a big ole predicament. The chick is me. and what do I need? an abortion, right? yep. so, i had an abortion when i was 17. and, i have already been in the habit of making little albums and writing little folk songs and driving around playing them for people...shamelessly. I was writing about all of my experiences and all of the gory details...except for that one. and, for a while, i just didn't write about it. it wasn't that i just wanted to sing about children and nature and things. i mean it wasn't really... it was more of a personal thing. i just couldn't. and then, what happened to me was i came across this poem called "the lost baby poem" by Lucille Clifton, a hero of mine. after i read this poem, i wrote this song called " the lost woman song." that poem really helped to enable me to do that and to keep...to get there. and so, being sort of a weirdo poetry faciest, they have these creepy organizations who go around and tape poets doing readings. then they will send them to you in the mail, which to me is pretty fascinating. so, you know...i am a huge customer. and i got this tape of lucille doing a reading, and she read that poem, "the lost baby poem." In her introduction to the poem, she said that it was the poem that she couldn't write for a really long time and it was kind of locked inside her. and only after reading a poem by gwendilyn brooks, called "the abortion," was she able to write "the lost baby poem." it floored me to hear her just say that because i felt like a really small part of a really big cycle of women hepling eachother to speak. so, i though i would try and tell you "the lost baby poem" as best as i could remember it. let's see...i think it goes like this:
the lost baby poem "

"Do you like how I took this song and made it sound like...Firedoor? I don't know what that's about. Take an old song, make a new version...and make it sound like another old song...and then in the middle of it, just go off on some kind of crazy tangent. Some kind of crazy tangent...like your 18 years old...and you just moved to New York City...and you move into this apartment that used to be a gay S&M bar, and there's all kinds of toys left behind. And your like 'Wooo...what does this do..what is that?!' And so now your like 'okay, now i'm in the big city and I should go out and I should hear, you know, poetry. I don't know...I should just go hang with cool people and see if some of it rubs off or something, you know."

"Whew, it's kinda humid in here. Iv'e always thought that a lot of audiences...you...feel like weather to me. We were kinda just back here and chattin' and all of a sudden this whole front kind of blows in the front door."

Audience member: "That was us!"

Ani: "Yea, it was you. There's this kind of high to mid feedback here (Ani starts making quacking sounds) Sorry, I'll just stand here and make duck noises and you can go about your meteorological business. But, yea, it's kind of funny when we walk out here..we never know...we never know"

"so, andy anf i were in gremany several weekes ago...yah. and, neither of us, well with the exception of montreal, neither of us have ever played for people who had no fucking idea what we were saying. but, it was kinda fun. at least i hope they had no idea what i was saying. so, i introduced this song (asking too much) there saying i thought it would be great music to build cars to. they didn't think it was funny... or maybe they were laughing inside. i don't know.

"it's kinda funny doing all these interviews and having people say "so, mrs. difranco, your a femininst, are ya then?" i was like umm... hmm mm. and it's weird too, because feminism is like this "f" word it seems like, and so many women who play music seem to wanna throw themselves into traffic to get outta the way of that word. like if they say that they're a feminist, it's a pigeon hole that they'll never climb out of. and, um, it's gonna keep thwm from being the next paula abdul or something. which, i suppose if that's what you want, maybe you shouldn't talk too much about feminism... but i think that it's not a dirty word. i think it's, you know, any woman who feels that women just have the right of self determination. i think that there's probably quite a few of us here tonight. so, i spent a few years trying to fight that whole scene...right, that whole label, and say 'no, i'm not angry... i'm goofy. i'm hungry. i'm sleepy. but, i'm not angry.' of course you could test me further, but now i've just decided it doesn't work to try and convince them that your actually really really incapable of being angry and that's why it all ends up in your songs. and that your actually really pathetic. cause they're just gonna think of you the way they wanna think of you. so, i've decided i'm gonna go with it. i'm gonna do the angry babe thang. somebody even made me a little cape with a big A on it. da da da..... it's angry woman. i think it's one step above apathy. i don't know. but anyway, this song ("out of range") is kind of about that.

"I'm 29 now, and somebody asked me today if I'm scared to turn 30...and um, I was like oh my god, after 27 it's gotta be such cake. That whole 27, 28, 29 era was just freaky."

"Every now and then I write myself a little security blanket...something I can wrap around myself onstage if I am feeling squeamish. Actually, 'Out of Habit' was my first little security blanket. You know, cause I write things like this and then, you know, if I'm having a really hard time in some little bar somewhere outside of Cleveland or something... Back to the Ohio theme that was established earlier. Ohio, you just can't, you can't really get away from it. I personally have to drive through Ohio to get to anywhere, being from Buffalo. They've got an awful lot of construction down there. They have been fixing the place. That's about all I know. Well, you know, it's an admirable quest...try to fix Ohio. Oh man, though I'm telling you... Buffalo is so on the border of Ohio. I mean there's a little strip of Pennsylvania in there, but that's just a speed trap. Basically it is Ohio, so I know all too well. Well, anyway...Out of Habit...I think I wrote 'Out of Habit' and I was like, oh, well this is a nice song...cause I could just stand there and say "fuck this time and place" whenever I'm feeling all sad and alone...and it will be my little joke with myself."

(People in audience getting all defensive for Ohio)

"Oh my god. You people are so defensive. We just need to let that go right now. Whoever you are is really ok with me. It's great...it's all good. Oh my god...we just came back from Australia and um, it's kind of big and extroverted...and full, full of white people. And I show up and we start playing the show, you know, and I was saying 'oh boy, we wandered down to some kinky ass beach a few blocks away from here. I guess we should of taken a cab to a nice beach or something...but we were there with the syringes. And everybody in the audience was like 'Hey!' ...and that was it, the whole evening was ruined. I was like 'I'm sorry I uh talked about your beach.' But, anyway, this is another song that I can wave like a little white flag when I dig myself a big oooold hole." --she then sings "Imagine That"

"so, I should just clarify...when I said you gotta let me sing this one I meant please don't sing along with every word. But uh, I'll tell you why. I've been thinking about it a lot... especially being a folk singer, you know, which is kind of a sing along...you know that's the whole point, you know 'kumbaya my lord.' But you know, I'm not really a 'this land is your land' kinda writer. For me it's more like a...you know I try to write uh...you know I've been trying to maul this over, you know, why this sing a long doesn't work as much beside the fact that it pisses off everyone around you...excrutiating. But just because I think it...for me it kinda turns what starts out as a very immediate emotional place and it...kind of turns it into a soccer chant. You know it kind of just brings it right out of it's origional place and it makes me feel all like...you know, a soccer player. Does that make any sense? Okay, I promise to stop scolding you now. That's it, that's it for the evening. You can do whatever else you want!"