i'll sing you a song that starts out descriptive
  and locates a time and a place
  like a dinner table where a whole family
  is just sitting down to say grace
  an old old song that moves into action
  taking its sweet sweet time
  and waits until we all say amen
  again and again in rhyme
    it's the story of a father and a mother
  who battle each other over nothin'
  with a couple of kids trying to figure
  which way the plot's spinning
  who's winning and who is bluffing
    it's a story as common as a penny, son
  it ain't really worth anything to anyone
    poor little sore little song
  that aches like a muscle each time that it moves
  sad little song that you play
  and you play and you play
  and you play 'til you lose
  while history is outside writing a recipe book
  for every earthly pain
  this song is inside finger painting dark swirls
  again and again and they all look the same
    cuz what if you come home from school one day
  and you find your whole family's at war
  and there's this ominous silence just waiting to be broken
  and there's secret places for hiding underneath the floorboards
  and everyone seems to be bracing
  for the subharmonic thunder of the next bomb
  and everyone seems to be waiting for the cops to bust in
  with their guns drawn
  at the bleak light of dawn
    it's a story as common as a penny, son
  i don't think it's worth anything to anyone