Last year my name struck fear, I was hungry, starving and I ruined careers
They’d say my name and I made them millions
Turf or dirt, the high stakes purse, I was king of the cards filling sports writer’s verse
I was a conqueror!
Glory, it’s freedom or so they taught me but at Honeydew Downs
I saw a hundred doves set free and I thought maybe only the opposite was true
Now the gun will crack and with the snap of a stick
We’ll run and they’ll judge us in quarter mile clips
They’ll say my name, and they’ll say it’s over
I’m at the starting gate while they smoke cigars and sip champagne
I got to play their game from the Derby to the Preakness to the Belmont Stakes, Bye-bye
Busted and broken with saddles on back
They caress our manes and etch our names in plaques
It’s why you’re bred kid but not why you’re born
And losers will be penned and caged, humiliated, then the bolt gun face
It’s a horror, their love for you
Remember the dust we’d kick up in the Western Plains?
We’d run just to run not for some gamblers gain but you got blinders
You’re a slot machine!
You see the low white fence where the hangdogs debrief? Past the evergreens, it’s where we should be
Oh I can see it and I call it destiny!
I’m at the starting gate while they smoke cigars and sip champagne
I got to play their game from the Derby to the Preakness to the Belmont Stakes
Bye-bye and the bravos will fade, they’ll take off the cloth and drop the charade
They won’t cry and they’ll justify saying “All bright lights, fade and flicker and die
Michelle Stodart’s folk music captures hope in melancholy, addressing the transformational aspects of the most challenging times. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 3, 2023