Polaroids (Live)

[Intro]
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Shawn Colvin.
Thank you.

[Verse 1]
Please no more therapy
Mother take care of me
And piece me together
With a needle and thread
Wrap me in eiderdown
Lace from your wedding gown
Fold me and lay me down
On your bed
Or liken me to a shoe
Blackened and spit-shone through
Kicking back home to you
Smiling back home
Just singing back home to you
Laughing back home to you
Dragging back home to you

[Verse 2]
I was so wary then
The ugly American
Thinner than oxygen
Tough as a whore
I said you can lie to me
I own what's inside of me
And nothing surprises me anymore
But forests in Germany
And kids in the Tuileries
Broken-down fortresses
In old Italy
And claiming his victory
Shrouded in mystery
He went running away with me

[Verse 3]
Back in our home New York
Walking these streets forlorn
We all in our uniforms
Black and black
Doing that slouch and jive
The artist must survive
We've got all we need we cried
And we don't look back
And thinking we had it made
Poised for the hit parade
Knee deep in accolades
The conceptual pair
Oh, but ever the malcontent
He left without incident
Vanished into thin air

[Verse 4]
Now I am always amazed
That words can fill up a page
And pages fill up the days
Between him and me
But the vows that we never keep
From bedrooms to business-speak
They make me remember how cheap
Words can be
And the letters I wrote you of
They were those of the desperate stuff
Like begging for love in a suicide threat
But I am too young to die
Too old for a lullaby
Too tired for life on the ledge

[Verse 5]
But I had a dream last night
Of lovers who walked the plank
Out on the edge of time
Amidst ridicule
And they laughed as they rocked and reeled
Over the mining fields
Coming to rest on this ship of fools
And he just took polaroids
Of her smile in the light
Of the dawn of the menacing sky
And before they went overboard
She turned and held up a card
And it said Valentine