We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Spit a Rat

from Monkey Comfort by Penelope Swales

/

lyrics

Spit a Rat
© Penelope Swales

Trust is a mixture of respect and grace
It can’t be forced
And it can’t be faked
But you don’t need
To trust someone to love them

Love gets mistaken for desire and need
Gets confused with lust
And confused with greed
But you don’t need
To need someone to want them

And you cried “Why oh why
Didn’t you crave me
The way I crave to be craved
The way I ache to be longed for?”
You didn’t want
Your tried and true companion
You wanted a new obsession
Something exciting, heart-racing
But that’s not what you said to me
At the time
You said you wanted
To stick with me

Betrayals’ mute
Like a stone in the heart
You can talk all day and never
Put your finger on the part
That really, really, really cut you
But grief is noisy
Man, it’s loud
You can be stoic
And you can be proud
You can shut your mouth
But it still roars all around you

It’s not always easy
To tell the difference
Between irrational fear
And a gut feeling
But darling,
There ain’t no doubt in
My guts now
And you cried
“Why oh why
Don’t you trust me?”
You were so indignant
So angry
Implying there was
Something wrong with me
But now it all
Seems so clear to me
I must have known
That you weren’t trustworthy

Honesty is a leap of faith
Did you bend the truth?
Did the truth break?
Did you find some way
To save your face
In your own mind, anyhow?
Maybe it’s more important
To admit the facts
Than to score the points
To be on the level
Than to have that
Moral high ground

A broken heart’s
Like a broken bone
It might get better
On it’s own
But if it don’t heal straight
Might have to break
Again to be set right
And your counsellor
Whom you pay
To hear you bitch
About your day
Well did you
Find some way
To restore her faith
Like you never
Restored mine?

Courage is the acid test
Are you brave enough
To confess
All those things that
Eat you up quietly
And if you really
Don’ t have the guts
To spit it out
Are you such a klutz
As to blame your partner
For your chicken-hearted
Silence

Faint heart never won no lady
Not that I’d call myself a lady
But hell,
I ain’t chopped liver either
So much mess
Could have been avoided
If you’d just got to the point
Instead of trying to make
Your feelings fit your fiction
Are you hearing me?
I’m trying to tell you
That you should have told me

Trust is a mixture
of respect and grace
Can’t be forced
Can’t be faked
And I’m not gonna tell ya
That I trust you
Are you hearing that?
Not as far
As I could spit a rat

credits

from Monkey Comfort, released July 7, 2003
Vocals, Guitar, stomp box - Penelope Swales
Double Bass - Barry Hill

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Penelope Swales image

Penelope Swales Boolarra, Australia

Penelope Swales has been articulating the human condition with passion and humour for 30+ years. She sings about politics, love, friendship, the unbreakable bond between us and dogs and the impact of the Internet on society. She won the 2019 Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice Award with “Cambridge Analytica”. “The Ides of March in Christchurch" was short-listed for the same award in 2020. ... more

contact / help

Contact Penelope Swales

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Penelope Swales, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Saxophonist Isaiah Collier chats about his new LP and the influence of Pharoah Sanders.
listen now