Song of the Stoic - Suzanne Vega

I am a man

I’ve been working all my days

This is my accounting

Of my means and of my ways

More years are behind me now

Than years that are ahead

Looking back I feel

This is my story to be said

I faced my father down

Inside the hallway of our home

18 years of pain

Upon my body to the bone

Demons lived inside of him

They forced him to the act

The layers of the bruises

To my body was the fact

Ooooh ooooh

I grew and went in to the world

I learned to know its code

Of spoken and unspoken

And I learned to love the road

I shoulder every burden

A mule with a heavy pack

Every coin I earn’s another

Knot within my back

Ecstasy and pleasure come

At much too great a cost

I keep myself upon the earth

But measure what I’ve lost

Winged things they brush against me

Never mine to hold

I keep my eyes upon the ground

And carry on as old

Ooooh ooooh

I knew a woman

She had the gifted touch

Her hands were wise with healing

And with wonder and all such

As the fates would have it

Each to others we are wed

Confine ourselves to friendship

We stay out of the bed

Now I turn around to face

The spectre of my age

My soul it fights my body

Like a bird will fight its cage

I see that last horizon

I hope it brings me peace

I look forward to the day

At last my body knows release

Ooooh ooooh

Ooooh ooooh