She thinks she knows you
She thinks she owns you
She wants everything to be
The way she told you
Of course she loves you
Worries about you
She'll smother you 'till you're chokin'
Tell me, don't you
Say Mama, tell me why
Has pleasure got to rhyme with sacrifice?
You had your ways
I have mine
Your little girls a woman
Don't you realize?
Of course she loves you
She adores you
She'll smother you 'till you're chokin'
Tell me, don't you?
She'll try to cage you
She'll enrage you
Walking 'round your life
Deciding for you
Sometimes she'll praise you
Sometimes she'll scorn you
Her dreams from yesterday
Could have destroyed you
Now Mama, tell me why?
Has pleasure got to rhyme with sacrifice?
You had your days
I have mine
Your little girl's a woman now ...
For quite some timeEleanor Young
Eleanor young
Eleanor child
Standing on a lonely hilltop
In the Appalachian Wild
Eleanor sing
Eleanor scream
Shout loud to your own green world
Doors don’t open for the country girl
Oh they lied to you
They sung to you songs you weren’t meant to hear
They showed you a life your eyes were never meant to see
You should have seen right through it
But you believed
Eleanor grow
Eleanor cold
Midnight in a dim lit diner
In the driving Detroit snow
Eleanor yearn
Oh Eleanor learn
One child with no last name
Your boy’s on the run
Who do you blame
Oh they lied to you
He did to you things that you were taught were sin
He took from you the best that was within you
He showed you things your eyes were never meant to see
But the saddest thing of all
Is baby you believed
Yeah yeah
The saddest thing of all you believed
Yeah mama you believed
Eleanor age
Eleanor cage
See California on New Years Day
Sun shines warm on the rose parade
Eleanor ache
Eleanor break
Come out west
With your last born child
Grew up scared and weird and wild
Oh you lied to me
You hid from me knowledge I should have known
You kept from me the life that was my own
You shielded me from pains I should have seen
For a very short while
Mama I believed
Yeah mama I believed