Tattoo lyrics

Her new name was tattooed to her wrist

It was longer than the old one

Sealed in the silence with a fist

This night will be a cold one

Centuries live in her eyes

Destiny laughs over jack-booted thighs

"Work makes us free" says the sign

Nothing leaves here alive

Tattoo

She steps out of line to the left,

and her father to the right

One sides a cold, clean death

The other is an endless night

Gold from a grandmother's tooth

Mountains of jewelry and toys

piled in the corners, mailed across the borders

Presents for the girls and boys

Presents for the girls and boys

Tattoo

It gets darker every night

Spread-eagled out among the stars, she says

Somewhere in this tunnel lives a light

Still my beating heart

I have never known a man

What man will want me now?

Am I still alive, somehow?

If I can survive, somehow

Tattooed

Soldiers from the other side

liberated them at dawn

Gave her water, gave her life

She still had all her clothes on

She lived until she died

Empty as the autumn leaves that fly

Surgeons took the mark

but they could not take it far

It was written on her heart

Written on her empty heart

Tattooed

• Artist:Janis Ian
• Album:Breaking Silence (1993)