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  Insert credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: author’s collection; 11 and 12: Scot Fisher; 13: Scot Fisher; 14: author’s collection; 15: Karen Robinson; 16: Scot Fisher; 17: author’s collection; 18: author’s collection; 19: Andy Stochansky; 20: josephcultice; 21 and 22: Scot Fisher; 23: Robert Yahn; 24: author’s collection; 25: Toni Armstrong Jr.; 26: © Susan Alzner / www.susanalzner.com; 27, 28, and 29: author’s collection; 30: Steven Stone; 31: author’s collection; 32 and 33: author’s collection; 34: Heidi Kunkel; 35: author’s collection; 36: © Susan Alzner / www.susanalzner.com; 37: © Danny Clinch 2019.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: DiFranco, Ani, author.

  Title: No walls and the recurring dream : a memoir / Ani DiFranco.

  Description: New York, New York : Viking, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019003676 (print) | LCCN 2019005388 (ebook) | ISBN 9780735225183 (ebook) | ISBN 9780735225176 (hardback)

  Subjects: LCSH: DiFranco, Ani. | Women singers--United States--Biography. | Women social reformers--United States .--Biography | Singers--United States--Biography. | Social reformers--United States--Biography | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Composers & Musicians.

  Classification: LCC ML420.D555 (ebook) | LCC ML420.D555 A3 2019 (print) | DDC 782.42164092 [B] --dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019003676

  Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

  Version_1

  for peter, without whom . . .

  contents

  title page

  copyright

  dedication

  introducing . . .

  Self Evident

  one

  No Walls

  Pedigree

  Plans

  Martin Luther

  Exposure

  Names

  The Lake

  Dancing

  two

  Hello Friend

  And Hello Friend

  Making Songs 1

  Gigging

  Emancipation

  The Big Apple

  The Unread Note

  Suzi

  Precipice

  Reproductive System

  Silences

  760 Ashland Avenue

  Scot Fisher

  Talent Contest

  Wildcat Builders

  The Road Not Taken

  three

  Making Songs 2

  My Other Other Voice

  If You Can Make It There . . .

  Eponymous Debut

  Traveling Salesmen

  Pay to Play

  Strays

  Too Good to Be True

  Now Voyager

  The New School for Social Research

  Boopha

  Sekou

  Racist Bullshit

  Activation

  Pete Seeger

  four

  The New Frontier

  The Lone Star State

  Unwelcome Home

  Once More With Feeling

  The Slant

  My IQ

  Beauty and the Beast

  Californiiay

  Reverse Objectification

  Up a Notch

  Typhoid Mary

  The Changing of the Guard

  Andy

  Water Water Everywhere

  Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago

  I.R.S.

  Rendezvous

  Mexico

  five

  Mish

  Folk Festivals

  Utah

  The Alphabet vs The Goddess

  Making Songs 3

  A Record of an Event

  The Boob Tube

  A Mother’s Work

  It’s Not an Adventure, It’s a Job

  Merch

  Goat

  Heidi Ho

  Chick Singers

  Hitchfest

  Arbitration

  six

  Italia

  Spewing Chunks

  Muscle Cars

  Excuse Me, Ms.?

  Rebirth

  Grand Canyon

  The Guthrie Archives

  Nora

  Cultural Equity

  Fellow Workers

  A Matter of Life and Death

  Maceo

  Making Songs 4

  A Prince Among Men

  Photo Shoots

  seven

  Longstory Short

  Why Are You Getting So Mad?

  Grey

  The Crash

  Late Night

  Subdivision

  eight

  The Shock Was Subsonic

  Crash Number Two

  Platforms

  Platforms

  Making Songs 5

  Akimbo

  Whole Other Girls

  Imagine That

  Other People’s Trash

  Recurring Dream

  photographs

  acknowledgments

  about the author

  introducing . . .

  I remember being on stage once in a tight little dress, the bottom of which kept riding up my thighs . . . all the way to my crotch as I moved around and sang (why was it doing this?!!) . . . my face growing hotter and hotter as I tried to hide behind my guitar.

  I remember once walking out in New York City to get some kind of queer award and getting booed . . . for not being queer enough . . . before I even reached the podium.

  I remember seeing something warpy and reflective from stage, it was in Amsterdam, and saying on mic, “What the fuck is that?!” only to walk over and see it was a young woman in the audience living with such severe palsy that she had to lie back in a special wheelchair with an elaborate series of mirrors in which to see the world beyond her knees.

  In other words, I’ve had many experiences of being on stage and wanting to die or disappear. I’ve had many experiences of being trapped in spotlights and time suddenly slowing way down, the sound of my own blood pounding in my ears taking over from some distant sonic background in which angry words are being flung at me from a deep darkness.

  Somehow this was worse.

  It was not just crying but sobbing. It was Carnegie Hall, spring of 2002, and the sobbing from the third balcony was getting louder and louder until it began echoing around the room. Plus, she was not even the only one crying. A moment of paralyzing trepidation came over me and I heard my voice falter and begin to move into a distant slow motion. It was the culmination of so many recent moments of paralyzing trepidation. Having been in Manhattan on 9/11 (months earlier) and having breathed in the acrid blue smoke of the towers. Having hit the road mere weeks afterward when everyone else was canceling their tours and staying home behind closed shutters. I traveled around a country in a state of emergency. I played to half-empty houses that took months to slowly fill up again. I felt, all the while, a great pressure to lift up the small audiences that were brave enough to come out. A pressure to make sense of it all. To make hope happen.

  I was confronted nightly with an impossible task: How am I supposed to make a whole show filled with all kinds of songs about all kinds of things when there is just one big thing pressing down on all of us? How could I possibly sing or talk about anything other than the all-encompassing panic in the air or the ominous march to war? And even if I could magically, suddenly make a whole show around this one looming thing, what the hell would I say? It was a challenging time to be a folksinger, at least, if you take your job seriously. The message that it was unpatriotic to criticize the president and his “just go shopping while we bomb the shit out of ’em” rhetoric was everywhere. Even from people and sources where you wouldn’t expect it. It was weird, watching what fear did to people. Unnerving numbers fell into lockstep.

  I tried to make myself into a lightning rod for critical thinking and accountability. I studied and I made notes and I got my facts straight. I stayed up debating and discussing late into the night with the most politically astute of my friends. I consulted trusted sources like Noam Chomsky and The Nation for guidance in sorting through the mainstream media quagmire. I traveled around the country and I talked to people everywhere I went.

  I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. On each stage, I unfolded a different permutation of a poem that came to be called “Self Evident.” I attempted to engage p
eople directly with this poem in real time. But now here I was, laying a poem about 9/11 down on the very people who had shouldered the brunt of the violence, the brunt of the loss. It was Carnegie Hall, it was only seven months later, and I was alone on stage when the question of “How can I possibly talk about anything but this right now?” suddenly wheeled around and became “How dare you talk about this right now?”

  It was too late. I was trapped again. The spotlight was on me and there was no time to rethink my decision. I heard my distant voice finish reciting the poem. I think it may have even sung a few more songs. Then I was back in a dressing room full of smelly lilies and roses and there were pats on the back and congratulations-you-just-played-Carnegie-Hall hugs. Time inexplicably kept going.

  I will never know what is the right balance in art between painful truths and painful silences. There is no right balance to be known. It is a question to be asked of every moment and its answer pertains only to that moment and no other. It’s the spontaneous deal we strike with others, the conversation or lack thereof. Having played my part every which way, I’m not even sure what I’d recommend. I just know that we need to be willing to make mistakes. I know that we need to allow for our differences. I know we need to forgive each other.

  I’ve managed to transcend my own trepidation many times and I’ve lifted whole groups of people up with me and, of course, I’ve also failed miserably. I have caught glimpses along the way of something very powerful and I’m not sure that I can tell you what it is but if you give me a chance maybe whatever it is will show itself.

  Which brings me back to that night in the mid-nineties (I was quite young at the time) when that gawdawful dress kept riding up my ass. It took me about four songs before I decided that the only thing to do was to take the dress off. There was no fixing of the problem, only the conquering of fear.

  Get ready: The truth is too valuable to put safety first.

  Get set: No amount of exposure is unbearable unless you let it be.

  Go: If you get caught with your pants down, take ’em off.

  SELF EVIDENT

  yes,

  us people are just poems

  we’re ninety percent metaphor

  with a leanness of meaning

  approaching hyper-distillation

  and once upon a time

  we were moonshine

  rushing down the throat of a giraffe

  yes, rushing down the long hallway

  despite what the p.a. announcement says

  yes, rushing down the long hall

  down the long stairs

  in a building so tall

  that it will always be there

  yes, it’s part of a pair

  there on the bow of Noah’s ark

  the most prestigious couple

  just kickin back parked

  against a perfectly blue sky

  on a morning beatific

  in its indian summer breeze

  on the day that america

  fell to its knees

  after strutting around for a century

  without saying thank you

  or please

  the shock was subsonic

  and the smoke was deafening

  between the setup and the punch line

  cuz we were all on time for work that day

  we all boarded that plane for to fly

  and then while the fires were raging

  we all climbed up on the window sill

  and then we all held hands

  and jumped into the sky

  and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast

  and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed

  and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar

  looked more like war than anything i’ve seen so far

  so far . . .

  so far . . .

  so fierce and ingenious

  a poetic specter so far gone

  that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling

  over “oh my god!” and “this is unbelievable” and on and on

  and i’ll tell you what, while we’re at it,

  you can keep the pentagon

  keep the propaganda

  keep each and every tv

  that’s been trying to convince me

  to participate

  in some prep school punk’s plan to perpetuate retribution

  perpetuate retribution

  even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution

  is still hanging in the air

  and there’s ash on our shoes

  and there’s ash in our hair

  and there’s a fine silt on every mantle

  from hell’s kitchen to brooklyn

  and the streets are full of stories

  sudden twists and near misses

  and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters

  with tales of narrowly averted disasters

  and the whiskey is flowin

  like never before

  as all over the country

  folks just shake their heads

  and pour

  so here’s a toast to all the folks that live in palestine

  afghanistan

  iraq

  el salvador

  here’s a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation

  under the stone cold gaze of mt. rushmore

  here’s a toast to all those nurses and doctors

  who daily provide women with a choice

  who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma city

  just to listen to a young woman’s voice

  here’s a toast to all the folks on death row right now

  awaiting the executioner’s guillotine

  who are shackled there with dread

  and can only escape into their heads

  to find peace in the form of a dream

  peace

  in the form

  of a dream

  cuz take away our playstations

  and we are a third world nation

  under the thumb of some blue blood royal son

  (who stole the oval office and that phony election)

  i mean,

  it don’t take a weatherman

  to look around and see the weather

  jeb said he’d deliver florida, folks

  and boy did he ever!

  and we hold these truths to be self evident:

  number one, george w. bush is not president

  number two, america is not a true democracy

  number three

  the media is not fooling me

  cuz i am a poem heeding hyper-distillation

  and i’ve got no room for a lie so verbose

  i’m looking out over my whole human family

  and i’m raising my glass in a toast

  here’s to our last drink of fossil fuels

  may we vow to get off of this sauce!

  shoo away the swarms of commuter planes

  and find that train ticket we lost

  cuz once upon a time the line followed the river

  and peeked into all the backyards

  and the laundry was waving

  the graffiti was teasing us

  from brick walls and bridges

  we were rolling over ridges

  through valleys

  under stars

  i dream of touring like duke ellington

  in my own railroad car

  i dream of waiting on the tall blond wooden benches

  in a grand station, aglow with grace

  and then standing out on the platform

  and feeling the air on my face

  give back the night its distant whistle

  give the darkness back its soul

  give the big oil companies the finger finally

  and relearn how to rock-n-roll!

  yes, the lessons are all around us

  and a truth is waiting there

  so it’s time to pick through the rubble

  clean the streets

  and clear the air

  get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand

  of someone else’s desert

  put it back in its pants

  quit the hypocritical chants of

  freedom forever!