Iowa
Dar Williams

I've never had a way with women,
but the hills of Iowa make me wish that I could
And I've never found a way to say "I love you",
but if the chance came by, oh, I, I would
But way back where I come from, we never mean to bother,
we don't like to make our passions other people's concern
And we walk in the world of safe people,
and at night we walk into our houses and burn.

How I long to fall just a little bit,
to dance out of the lines and stray from the light
But I fear that to fall in love with you
is to fall from a great and gruesome height
So I asked a friend about it, on a bad day,
her husband had just left her, she sat down on the chair he'd left behind
She said, "What is love? Where did it get me?
Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."

Once I had everything, I gave it up
for the shoulder of your driveway and the words I've never felt
And so for you, I came this far across the tracks,
ten miles above the limit and with no seatbelt (and I'd do it again)
For tonight I went running through the screen doors of discretion,
for I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see:
You were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa
and you were not thinking of me.


-the song makes me cry, but the memory makes me smile
*
Of interest
http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/issue145/lovely.htm
On the topic of an idea of beauty being pushed on Indian women.