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Home > Music > Burning Herself

Burning Herself
by Harry Chapin

She was crazy (she was beautiful),
I guess she had to be.
I was angry (you were blind),
because I could not see.
I saw only what her cigarettes had done to her skin.
I should have known the outside world
would reveal what was within.
She was burning herself,
and her hair was filled with ashes.
She was burning herself,
and her life becomes a flame.
She was burning herself,
and the flame became her passion.
She was burning herself,
and her passion,
her passion was her pain.
She was trusting (you could have saved her too),
all hope had passed for her.
I was lusting (and she gave to you),
that's all I asked for her.
The marks upon her body
and the marks upon her mind.
I could have erased them
if I'd only taken the time.
I never saw her do it,
I only saw the scars.
I never could imagine
what would make her go that far.
I wondered,
was she driven by desperate need to feel,
to find out she was living,
to discover life was real.
Or was it that the pain
slicing through her like a knife
was easier to take
than the emptiness of life?
Had a strange sense of drama
caught her in a role,
or was she trying to cauterize
the chancres on her sole?
I don't know
I don't know
I don't know...

Harry's Music

Bottom Line Encore Collection       [Amazon] [iTunes] Chapin Music       [iTunes] Cotton Patch Gospel       [iTunes] Dance Band On The Titanic*       [Amazon] [iTunes] Essentials       [Amazon] Gold Medal Collection       [Amazon] [iTunes] Greatest Stories Live*       [Amazon] [iTunes] Harry Chapin Tribute       [Amazon] Heads & Tales       [Amazon] [iTunes] Last Protest Singer       [Amazon] Legends Of Lost & Found*       [iTunes] Living Room Suite       [Amazon] [iTunes] On The Road To Kingdom Come       [Amazon] [iTunes] Portrait Gallery       [Amazon] [iTunes] Sequel       [iTunes] Short Stories       [Amazon] [iTunes] Sniper & Other Love Songs       [Amazon] [iTunes] Songwriter       [iTunes] Story of a Life       [Amazon] Verities & Balderdash       [Amazon] [iTunes] * = Highly Recommended

The Latest Release

Sniper & Other Love Songs   [iTunes] In 1972, Harry released Sniper & Other Love Songs. Thirty years would pass before the album would ever reach the CD format. Sniper was finally re-released in June, 2002. Originally given a working title of Sweet City Suite, the album tells the story of various characters one might run into in a city. The album features the original studio versions of Chapin classics "A Better Place to Be" and "Circle." But perhaps more importantly (as those songs are already well-distributed on compilation CDs), the album features seemingly lost Chapin stories, including "And the Baby Never Cries," "Burning Herself," "Barefoot Boy," and "Woman Child." Sniper is for the seasoned Chapin fan. New fans would do better to check out Greatest Stories Live. But for Chapin fans who have reached the level of the Dance Band on the Titanic album, this is the next step. Slightly over-produced and having a little of the "forced" feel that some of Harry's studio albums possess, this album does not capture the powerfully live Harry Chapin. Nonetheless, it captures Harry's great iconoclastic songwriting--Harry takes the story song to new heights here. But the album works best for those ready for it; don't buy it until you are ready to appreciate it!