Ten Cartwheels Words

Ten Cartwheels
Words and Music by Ian Tanner
(Music Jan 28/02, Words Feb 27/02)

I know that this sounds crazy, but I want to hand out daisies,
To the Senior citizens who walk together hand in hand,
I want to do ten cartwheels on a busy street at noon hour,
So that everyone will notice me and think that I’ve gone mad.

And I don’t care what people think,
I’m going to do things my way,
Though they’ll think I’m psychopathic,
I am really just ecstatic,
I love you, and that’s why I am acting weird,
I love you, and I don’t care who notices,
I love you, and that’s why I am twirling in the streets,
Doing ten cartwheels just for kicks.

Stories in the news are bad enough to make me lose the will,
To keep on living in a world that’s really going to Hell,
But somehow in this loneliness, despair and fear and trembling,
I just have this stupid grin upon this bashful, blushing face!

Bridge:

I tear, I laugh, ten paragraphs,
I can’t stop writing of you,
I know not how, I know not why,
But something in your eyes is making me do all these crazy things…

I want to go to funerals, to let the mourning families know,
There’s something more to hope for than just living in the now,
I’m riding through the park, I’m playing tennis with the pretty boys,
And girls like Micol Finzi-Continis just days before the war.