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Borrowed Time Lyrics
You sit high with your servants at your feet,
Warming over your stone cold tea.
Toast sweet wine with the ladies of the street,
Who got down on their backs for free.
You know them well.
They kiss and tell.
You live high
On your borrowed time.
You won't learn when you're raking in the highs.
Oh, you try to get by unseen.
Come your turn, you'll be mirrored down to size,
In the eyes of a cardboard queen.
She'll call your name.
I'll call your game.
It's your go,
Your private three-ring show.
It's been easy to please,
But your own devotees
Have outgrown it.
Have you blown it?
You had time 'cause you graduated young,
Jumped the gun to collect your score.
Now you're miming, Cat Fever's got your tongue,
As you run for the back stage door.
I guarantee
No sympathy.
They've been told
You ain't dipped in gold.
You'll be stoned in the street,
And be shown in the heat
Of reaction.
No satisfaction.
Your time is due.
No time for you.
Oh it's over now. (No time for you.)
Borrowed time has run out for you. (No time for you.)
Warming over your stone cold tea.
Toast sweet wine with the ladies of the street,
Who got down on their backs for free.
You know them well.
They kiss and tell.
You live high
On your borrowed time.
Oh, you try to get by unseen.
Come your turn, you'll be mirrored down to size,
In the eyes of a cardboard queen.
She'll call your name.
I'll call your game.
It's your go,
Your private three-ring show.
But your own devotees
Have outgrown it.
Have you blown it?
Jumped the gun to collect your score.
Now you're miming, Cat Fever's got your tongue,
As you run for the back stage door.
I guarantee
No sympathy.
They've been told
You ain't dipped in gold.
And be shown in the heat
Of reaction.
No satisfaction.
No time for you.
Oh it's over now. (No time for you.)
Borrowed time has run out for you. (No time for you.)
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Feels like a well-earned tongue lashing and calling to task from lyricist Nickey Barclay of male chauvinists (in the rock industry?) who do nothing but use and abuse, then get bored and repeat the cycle. She sees them as man-children who have tricked others, but whose flame is about to go out / bubble is about to burst / "borrowed time has run out." She sees through their bullshit and calls them out on it. Fanny's website says that Nickey doesn't suffer fools lightly, and I believe it. It helps that all four of the band members bring their own brand of ass-kicking intensity to the table. This is Fanny in finest form. Nice callback to "Cat Fever" from their previous album, Charity Ball, as well.
Hard to believe that this song was written nearly 5 decades before the #TimesUp movement, and was performed by a group that did not think of themselves as feminists (at least at the time). Listening with modern ears tells a different tale, from where I sit.