Dar Williams
What Do You Hear In These Sounds
[Verse 1]
I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak
I go and I find the one and only answer every week
And it's just me and all the memories to follow
Down any course that fits within a fifty-minute hour
And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something
But she knows that it's much better if I get it for myself

[Chorus]
And she says ooh, oh
What do you hear in these sounds?
And ooh, oh
What do you hear in these sounds?

[Verse 2]
I say, "I hear a doubt with the voice of true believing
And the promises to stay and the footsteps that are leaving"
And she says, "Oh," I say, "What?" She says, "Exactly"
I say, "What, you think I'm angry?
Does that mean you think I'm angry?"
She says, "Look, you come here every week with jigsaw pieces of your past
It's all on little soundbites and voices out of photographs
And that's all yours, that's the guide, that's the map
So tell me, where does the arrow point to? Who invented roses?"
[Chorus]
And ah, ooh, oh
What do you hear in these sounds?
And ooh, oh
What do you hear in these sounds?

[Bridge]
And when I talk about therapy, I know what people think
That it only makes you selfish and in love with your shrink
But oh, how I loved everybody else
When I finally got to talk so much about myself

[Verse 3]
And I wake up and I ask myself what state I'm in
And I say, "Well, I'm lucky, 'cause I am like East Berlin
I had this wall and what I knew of the free world
Was that I could see their fireworks and I could hear their radio
And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing
And they'd know that I was scared, they would know that I was guessing
But the wall came down and there they stood before me
With their stumbling and their mumbling and their calling out just like me"

[Chorus]
And ah, ooh, oh
The stories that nobody hears
And ah
I collect these sounds in my ears
And ooh, oh
That's what I hear in these sounds
And ooh, oh
That's what I hear in these
That's what I hear in these sounds, sounds, yeah
[Outro]
Ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah
That's what I hear in these (Ah, ah)
That's what I hear in these sounds