Ready to Pop

Released June 22, 2001

Purchase Digital Download

First issued in cassette form, this is a “genuine bootleg” of a live Sara Hickman concert at the Caravan of Dreams; Ft. Worth, Texas on June 22, 1996. Sara was seven months pregnant at the time, hence the title.

Kristin de Witt on background vocals and Paul Pearcy on percussion accompanied Sara on this romp…er.. show. Lotsa talk and hilarity. Includes her famous and hilarious tampon rant and joke… hey, she was pregnant!

Track Listing

BLAHBLAHBLAH/TIGER IN A TEACUP TOWN
BLAHBLAH/ONE IN OUR HAPPINESS
BLAH/AURORA
TAMPON STORY/KAYAKING
IF WE SENT OUR HEARTS OVER NOW
IN THE FIELDS
500X (THE TRAIN SONG)
JOY
TAKE WHATEVER I CAN GET
THIS HEART

Lyrics

Tiger in a Teacup Town
Tigers usually live in a jungle
And you did
Until you moved into town last summer and
Started asking questions
Oh, life was just a pleasant game that we all played
Until you tried to tell us we were living charades

You weren't afraid to speak your mind
Or show your true colors
And though they seemed like friends whenever you were around
Behind your back they'd laugh and they’d call you a clown
They were building you up just to tear you down

Now you're a tiger in a teacup town
How does it feel, how does it feel?
Now you're a tiger in a teacup town
Now now now now now

When they started building the red cage on wheels
I knew where you were headed
I watched their eyes grow dark
Whenever you passed by

You'd say "good morning"
And wag your tail
To who’d ever notice
I guess you didn't mind
Eating your lunch alone

And as they sipped their tea
Acting so politely
You were living your life too far out on a limb
They grew to hate your nature and your beautiful skin
They were fragile with the fear
'Cause you're not like them

Now you're a tiger in a teacup town
How does it feel, how does it feel?
Oh, you're a tiger in a teacup town
You better watch where you sit down
You're a tiger in a teacup town
They're gonna lock you up and throw away the key

But deep inside
You're gonna eat them alive
With the strength of your own memory

One morning I was called to have tea
With the neighbors and friends
I guess I started asking too many questions

I guess it escaped me
I guess I had closed my eyes
But the look on their faces
Started to fill me with fear

They said that you'd left town
And tried to console me
And it was then I knew that you'd been taken for sure
For underneath my feet was the feel of your fur
And the room was spinning....
Endlessly
Then it hit me

I'm a tiger in a teacup town
How does it feel, how does it feel?
Oh, I'm a tiger in a teacup town
Now now now now now
Oh, I'm a tiger in a teacup town
I'm a tiger in a teacup town

One in Our Happiness
Leaves on the grass
Gentle and wet
Your fingers rest on my face
I fall from myself
You smile to yourself
The clouds drift across like a mountain of green

Too many nights
Turn into day
Oh, yes
If they could all only end this way
I'm calling your name
You're calling my name
We are one in our happiness

Learning you mean
Whatever you say
I trust we will always make love this way
I lifted the sun
And you
Helped me
Put it away
When you sleep
I kiss your eyes
My happy sighs
Rest in the palm
Rest in the palm of your hand

I reach for your heart with mine
I'm with you all the time
I reach for your heart with mine
I'm with you all the time

Too many nights
Turn into day
Oh, yes
If they could all only end this way
I'm calling your name
You're calling my name
We are one in our happiness

Because thinking, looking at you
And dreaming, you think of me too
Believing our attractions
At you laugh, laughing, with all that you do
While I fall into eyes
Blue

I reach for your heart with mine
I'm with you all the time
I reach for your heart with mine
I'm with you all the time

Aurora
Dodging the white coats in white halls
I check my guitar — is it in tune?
Crossing the hall to her room
Where
Sitting alone in her chair
I
Position myself in her singular stare
I sing for Aurora
She's not feeling too well today, they say,
"How can you tell? She looks
So healthy
In every way..."

And she
Can't speak a word
But I know
She can hear
every word that I say
I wish I could speak
With my eyes

Jerking her toes in time
A cryptic rhythm of hers... or mine?
Sometimes out of the shadows she
She whispers her scattered history
A faint remembrance visits the house
Of the elderly

And she
Can't speak a word
But I know
She can hear
every word that I say
I wish I could speak
With my eyes

2056
Here I sit
No more numbered days
I wake to a circle of angels
With their heads bowed low
And their mouths
Encircle my soul

Am I here?
In this numbered room?
I wake to a blue-jeaned girl
She's singing her songs
And trying so hard
Not to cry ...

And she
Can't speak a word
But I know
She can hear
every word that I say
I wish I could speak
With my eyes

Kayaking
You might think I'm foolish
And you might think I'm insane
But you'll never find another
Who wants to do the same

'Cause when you are a'wonderin'
How to make me be your girl
Just take me in the broad daylight
To where the mighty rapids swirl

I wanna go kayaking
Wanna make you my kayak king
I can hardly wait
For our first date
When we go kayaking

Forget the lost city of Atlantis
I'm lookin' for white waters and a wet kiss
I can hear those waves crashin' at the shore
Don't take me dancin', I'll just get bored
Forget your Kodak
Your backpack
Your Tic-Tacs
Your gunrack
Nothin' could be better
I'll spell it to the letter
Give me that Grand Canyon bliss

I wanna go kayaking
Gonna make you my kayak king
All the fish will sing,
Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling!
When we go kayaking

I've heard Niagara Falls is so gigantic
But goin' down with you would be romantic
I can hear those waters churnin'
While our kayak is a turnin'
To the left
To the right
Over and out of sight
Oh, such a thrill
A six hundred foot spill...
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Let's do it again!

Let's go kayaking
Gonna make you my kayak king
What a wonderful life,
As your aquatic wife!
When we go kayaking

And let's not forget the Amazon scene
In which I play the African Queen
In our kayak built for two
Doin' what kayaking lovers do
You'll be the jack of hearts
The handsome captain called Bogart
Kissin' me
The young Hepburn
As we learn
To share the stern...

I wanna go kayaking
Gonna make you my kayak king
We'll grow old together,
We'll have skin like leather
As we go kayaking

Oh, take me in the kayak, Jack!

If We Sent Our Hearts Over Now
I wore my heart out on my sleeve
But then they shot me down
And they left me here to die ...
If my last kiss is this cold ground
Will I forgive the hand
That held the gun and
Took my life away?
Can't we take
The time of day
To give the world another chance
Can't we learn
From our mistakes?
We're human after all...

If we sent our hearts over now
Would it ease the pain?
If we sent our hearts over now
Would it stop the fighting?
If we sent our hearts over now
Would it be enough to save the world?
Well, I can't believe
I'm the only one
who just can't believe
That this is going on...

As I sit in my small cell
Counting scratches on the wall
Scratch my head and start to cry
Chained to this solitary hell
I'm about to lose it all
My last words are to myself
Racing back to the fateful day
I took another human life away
Oh, how I've learned from my mistakes
But now I have to pay...

Oh, can't we learn from our mistakes?
We're human, after all...

I'm held hostage in a land
Where there's no brotherhood of man
No one understands what I say
I just make it through each day
As they let me waste away
Somewhere behind the walls of sand
My situation is unknown
And my captors rule from a thorny throne
Each night I dream that I’ll soon be home
But I can't sleep tonight...

In The Fields
In the fields
Where we laid our heads
Dog barking to the heat of the beating sun
Hot ground
Sweet ground
A feeling of fever in the air
Kissing the nape of your neck
(Sighing colors)
Breaking sticks into heartsick
Flaming words

In the fields
Making love
The luck of the Irish
Tucked between your toes
Love's debt
Pays regret
In months I begin to show
Dressing as a car drives by
(Gasping buzzards)
Turning time into a lover' s rhyme
Pressed between the pages
Of my heart . . .

In the fields where are you?
Are you hiding yourself there . . . still?
In the fields where are you?
Are you hiding yourself
In a city of weeds
Are you hiding yourself
In a city of glass?
(In a city of glass ...)

In the fields
Tripping on
Pushing through the barbs
To reach the greener side . . .
It was years ago
We let each other go
To follow the tracks of our dreams . . .
Sometimes I carry the memory
(Full term)
Delivering the spitting
Image of you
(Eyes burn)
I live at peace
I did what I had to do.
And you . . .
And you . . .
And you?

500X (The Train Song)
Metal monster
Dying dinosaur
I can hear your mighty
Stomach roar
As you race
Slower down the line
In time we converse
This eerie mating call
A coo-coo choo-choo
Ooo-eee
My heart
(and soul)
They go out to you
Bending me round, round, round
Bend me round the bend

Ooo-oo-oo
Ooo-oo-oo-ay-oo

Me in the lotus
You form a pretzel
Cross the states
(How I long to feel
The grease on my back…)
Take me to forbidden jungles
And over forgotten paths
Clickety-clickety
Clickety clack…

How I’m drawn
To this station
How I miss what I never had
Deep inside
Curiosity and sadness
Play tag
With my heart…

If truth’s the navigator
Of those steaming, screaming gears
(passing images still linger…)
And each day we’re deported
from depot to desk
but we’re guided
by fame and fortune’s fingers…

Joy
A grocery cart for a car
A broken curb for a pillow
No house, no kids, no pets, no bills
Just a husband with an angry scar

Her face was kissed by the night
And I’m a slice of the moon
I gave her my toaster oven
On a frozen afternoon

Her mother named her “Joy"
It was the last word from her lips
How strange a woman with not much more than a name
Can find such happiness

Living on the streets she don't mind
Everyone she meets has no time
To be kind

I can search for days up and down
So afraid she won't come around
And I find
If I stop looking
There is Joy to be found

She would visit our dumpster
Collecting empty bottles of beer
I gave her an electric blanket
On the hottest day of the year

Joy can shop in the rain
And she makes dinner in the snow
Joy finds things in places
I’m too scared to go

Living on the streets she don't mind
Everyone she meets has no time
To be kind
I can search for days up and down
So afraid she won't come around
And I find
If I stop looking

Nothing is hers, she says:
“There is nothing we really own"
And she ignores the fences
Society's sown

Summer fell into fall
And fall grew into spring
There was never another word from Joy
And I knew it could only mean

Living on the streets she don't mind
Everyone she meets has no time
To be kind
I can search for days up and down
So afraid she won't come around
And I find
If I stop looking
Oh, if I stop looking
There is Joy to be found

Take Whatever I Can Get
I should go home
I know this is wrong
But I'm glued to my chair, can't do nothin' but stare
At this guy
I'm feeling sick
And sort of confused
Here comes a ghost I can never lose
And he's sittin' down right next to me
Pretending he's you, there's nothin' I can do

'Cause he's got your eyes
He's got your face
He's got your moves
And he's workin' the entire place
Have I lost my mind?
Cannot forget
He isn't you...
But I'll take whatever I can get

He's havin' a drink
I'm havin' two
He bends his straw the way you used to do
Yeah, my heart's a mess
What have I done?
'Cause he's just some guy out having fun
And he starts to laugh
Throw back his head
Wish I was home, wish I was dead

'Cause he's got your eyes
He's got your face
He's got your moves
And he's workin' the entire place
Have I lost my mind?
Cannot forget
He isn't you...
But I'll take whatever I can get

Oh, he reaches over
And I run for cover
I've gotta remember, he's not my lover
He'll never be you

But he's got your eyes
He's got your face
He's got your moves
And wants to take me back to his place
Have I lost my mind?
Cannot forget
He isn't you...
But I'll take whatever I can get

'Cause he's got your eyes
He's got your face
He's got your moves
And he's workin' the entire place
Have I lost my mind?
Cannot forget
He isn't you...
But I'll take whatever I can
Take whatever I can
Take whatever I can get

This Heart
These hands, these hands, these hands
Were made to hold
And these lips are here to say these words
And let this truth be told
And these legs were made to weather our storms
And hold up fast and true
And this heart, this heart, this heart
Was made for you

And I know my heart was made for you
Oh, I know my heart -- this heart -- was made for you
And I know that the answer is a love so strong and true
Oh, I know my heart -- this heart -- was made for you

And these eyes, these eyes, these eyes
Have wept lonely dreams
And though some arms have held me close
They were never what they seemed
So, I looked inside for peace of mind
And there I found a clue
That this heart, this heart, this heart
Was made for you

And I know what this heart sees
My heart could not be wrong
And I know you're the one for me
And I believe what I knew all along