I Learned To Stutter/coffin Car

Recorded live 3 june 1973 at the first international feminist conference, harvard university, cambridge, ma.


"while john is setting up the amp...
What happened to me was that i was living as an artist and, who had relative freedom
As a woman and was considered the bitch in the society.
Since i met john, i was upgraded into a witch and i was...and i think that that's very flattering.
Anyway, what i learned from being with john is that the society solely treated me as a woman, as a woman who belonged to a man who is one of the most powerful people in our generation, and some of his closest friends told me that probably i should stay in the background, i should shut up, i should give up my work and that way i'll be happy.
And i got those advises, i was luck, i was over thirty and it was too late for me to change,
But still, still, this is one thing i want to say, sisters, because, with the wish that you know
You're not alone, i...because the whole society started to attack me and the whole society wished me dead, i started accumulating a tremendous amount of guilt complex and in result of that i started to stutter. and i consider myself a very eloquent woman and also an attractive woman all my life and suddenly, because i was associated to john, that was considered an ugly woman, ugly jap, who took your monument or something away from you.
And that's when i realised how hard it is for woman, if i can start to stutter, being a strong woman and having lived thirty years by then, learn to stutter in three years of being treated as such, it is a very hard road.
Now the next song is called "coffin car" and this is a song that i observed in myself and also in many sisters who are riding on coffin cars.

Okay

Coffin car, she's riding a coffin car,
She likes to ride a coffin car.
People watching her with tender eyes,
Friends whispering in kindly words,
Children running, waving hands,
Telling each other, how pretty she is.

Coffin car, she's riding a coffin car,
She likes to ride a coffin car.
Friends making ways for the first time,
People throwing kisses for the first time,
Showering flowers, ringing bells,
Telling each other, how nice she is.

Coffin car, she likes to ride a coffin car,
She's riding a coffin car.
Wives showing tears for the first time,
Husbands taking their hats off for the first time,
Crushing their handkerchiefs, rubbing their nose,
Telling each other, how good she is.

Half the world is dead anyway,
The other half is asleep.
And life is killing her,
Telling her to join the dead.

So ev'ry day, she likes to ride a coffin car,
A flower covered coffin car,
Pretending she was dead.

Coffin car,
A flower covered coffin car,
A flower covered coffin car,
A flower covered coffin car.