Mimi Speaks

Lyrics

[Intro] There is a girl out on the sea Floating on a pink surfboard With a picnic lunch and parasol Sitting there like a typical girl [Verse 1] You don't know me but I've been hearing you all day I thought that by ignoring you perhaps you'd go away I thought it was just too much sun as I faced out across the bay Hearing all these voices telling me how to spend my day And then I turned around and I saw you standing there Talking all this time, talking like you care It's been ten years And you haven't gone away So I'm finally speaking up It's time to have my say [Verse 2] First of all, my name isn't Mimi My name is Ruth, that's right Ruth-Mimadoni-Castradicus-Phaterpithecus-Triumvatini And I came from a family of ten children, that's right Tomboy, youngest Learned to fight before I learned to walk, that's right All cannons open by the age of two By six I ruled the schoolyard By fourteen I ruled the shopping lounge—malls I was loud, active, restless, arrogant, aggressive, and strong And I couldn't understand these flimsy little things Called "teenage girls" They'd scatter before me like ineffective little dolls And I bullied them even more in my consternation Trying to make them break out Trying to beat them into consciousness And then one day, I was working on this little bit of a thing And I was trying to whip her into three dimensions And she was shaking and she was looking so confused Like a little puppy And it was making me even madder And I was just about to give her one last kick When all of a sudden, she got real silent I mean, real silent [Verse 3] From somewhere far away, I heard someone calling my name They called Ruth-Mimadoni-Castradicus-Phaterpithecus-Triumvatini And a pink surfboard was handed to me And a voice said "Her name is Mimi" And they gently urged me forward to the edge of the water That's right, and we moved out to sea, Mimi and me Except I wasn't Mimi, it was the surfboard, and me And the language between us was wordless And it hung there in the air And I spent a lot of time, you know, on that surfboard Sitting in the sun Thinking about the chains that bind and why I was the only one who didn't seem to have any And slowly it sort of came to me that Maybe I was a prisoner of being oh-so-free And some days I hated the pink, I hated the pink Pink for weakness and girls and posies And oppression and subjugation And asexuality and moral shrivenness And ignorance and painted toesies And yet it's pink, you know, that is my friend out here On the sea that I'm, I'm learning how to fear And it's pink that's showing me the way Showing me how to not always have my say To hear perhaps what you might have to say [Verse 4] (Stand up, Mimi) What? (Stand up, Mimi) I've heard that (Stand up, MImi) Oh, it's like an old dream (Stand up) And you know now, do you understand after what I've said to you That by saying "Stand up," you're talking to a natural athlete That's not so hard for me I think the hardest thing that I've ever done Is to feel so incomplete [Outro] A strange thing happened On a local beach that day One girl paddled out to sea And the other walked away (I scan the horizon for you, Mimi) (I still mean what I said, Mimi) I know I want to say I really appreciate you coming along with us on our adventures We uh, you know we, these are sort of one-time shows And uh, they're here and then they're gone And we don't know what to expect and you don't know what to expect But you come with a really great energy and I appreciate it