The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #129527   Message #2908372
Posted By: Jim Dixon
17-May-10 - 02:27 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: My Autobiography (Janis Ian)
Subject: Lyr Add: MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Janis Ian)
Janis Ian sang this on a PBS special I just watched. I didn't know she did any funny songs, but this one is funny. As a matter of fact she did write an autobiography: Society's Child: My Autobiography (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, ©2008). It contains these lyrics.

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Janis Ian

I know you and I'll agree:
What this world needs is a lot more me.
Well, I have got the remedy:
Gonna write my autobiography.
I've led a fascinating life.
I've had a husband and a wife,
But you will truly be amazed
Just how humble I have stayed.

Enough about me; let's talk about you.
What do you think of me?
You must feel such gratitude
That you will get to read
My autobiography.

My life doesn't have a very good plot.
I guess I'll have to lie a lot.
Should be easy to make things up.
There's no one left to call my bluff.
A lot of my old friends have passed on.
The rest did drugs and their memory's gone.
So I'll write my own history
In my autobiography.

I'll say I slept with a Kennedy.
I don't remember which one.
They all look the same to me,
Or they did when we got done.

Maybe they'll film it for TV.
I wonder who they'll cast as me?
It should be somebody I look like.
Sigourney Weaver'd be all right.
It's gonna be hard to deal with fame
Once the whole world knows my name,
But I'll stay humble and grateful to
All the little people like you.

A thousand pages more of me,
And all I've seen and done—
It will be my legacy,
And that's just volume one
Of my autobiography.