Maryanne Was Quiet

[Verse 1]
Maryanne started her life in Ireland
To a very young mother who couldn't provide
Even very young, she was good and quiet
Her teeth grew in brown from a poor person's diet
And when she was five her mother figured
She'd have a better life in some house that was bigger
So up for adoption to Larchmont, New York
Taken in by my grandparents into a family of seven

[Chorus]
Maryanne was quiet
Maryanne was quiet
And everyone had to wonder
Was it her nature?
Or had something happened violent? Hmm

[Verse 2]
My mother was older, the only one born of blood
She understood things that only she understood
Everyone else, so unaware
That every night she'd find her dad drunk in a chair
Asking her to come sit on daddy's lap
Alcoholism and all of that crap
Who was to say if Maryanne suffered
At the hands of her father as did my mother?
No one to tell, no one to ask
If was the 1950's, no one taken to task
What happens at home is a family's business
As far as everyone was concerned
She was their perfect little Irish princess

[Chorus]
And Maryanne was quiet
Maryanne was quiet
And everyone, they had to wonder
Was it her nature?
Or had something happened violent? Hmm

[Verse 3]
Cut to years later in the Floridian sand
A mounted policeman asked for her hand
They called him Beezy, he was a cop on a horse
He had a walrus type mustache and a muscle car
They had two daughters at 18 of age
Beezy had pictures of naked girls in his garage of the same age

Maryanne taught high school, her kids really liked her
But they all sensed something nervous inside her
Then on a Monday, getting ready to go in
She felt the four walls quickly rushing in
She called the doctor to come and see
He said she was overworked and gave her something to sleep

One day, the next, and it grew more and more
The panic inside her was also outside her door
The world and its people were plotting her doom
The only safe place was there in her room

The girls and Beezy, they knew something was wrong
But they chose not to think about it ever to long
Then on that day, as she laid in her bed
The panic, it was pushing the eyes out of her head
The doctors had given her some anxiety pills
That made her feel psychotic on top of everything else
Either lay there, watch her own life dissolve or
Reach in the side table for her husband's revolver
And that's what she did, with her weak little arms
And she held it to her head, with her weak little arms
And it turns out her weakness was her one saving grace
As the gun jerked
Instead of entering her brain
It went through her face

[Chorus]
And Maryanne was quiet
Maryanne was quiet
And in that blackness she had to wonder
Was she just sleeping?
Or had something happened violent? Hmm

[Verse 4]
Six months later and she had a new face
The doctors had put in a new one in its place
We all went to visit at Thanksgiving time
We hadn't seen her since the accident, we didn't know what we would find
To my surprise, she seemed better than ever
New confidence and a face put together
Still she was sweet, but not quite as weak
There was a lift in her posture and something clear in her speech
And none of them said a word of the ordeal
So I guess we all have different ways to heal
And as we flew home we felt a little bit strange
In how we found the whole thing arranged
But who is it for us to say what it takes for someone to find their own worth and will to go on?

[Outtro]
And as for the future, who knows what's in store?
But our Maryanne is silent no more
Is silent no more
Is silent no more
Is silent no more
Is silent no more
Is silent no more