As Cool As I Am Lyrics
I was no sister then, I was running out of time and one liners
And I was afraid, like you are, when you're too young to know the time, and
So I watch the way you take your fear and horde the horizon
You point, you have a word for every woman you can lay your eyes on
Like you own them just be cause you bought the time
And you turn to me, you say you hope I'm not threatened
As cool as I am, I thought you'd know this already
I will not be afraid of women
I will not be afraid of women
She is smiling and she's falling in a slow, descending funk
And the whole bar is loud and proud and everybody's trying, yeah
You play the artist, saying, "Is it how she moves, or how she looks?"
I say, it's loneliness suspended to our own like grappling hooks
And as long as she's got noise, she's fine
But I could teach her how I learned to dance when the music's ended
As cool as I am, I thought you'd know this already
I will not be afraid of women
I will not be afraid of women
To make me guess
Tried to make me feel like a little less
Oh, I liked you when your soul was bared
I thought you knew how to be scared
And now it's amazing what you did to make me stay
But truth is just like time, it catches up and it just keeps going
And if it helps, I'd say I feel a little worse than I did when we met
So when you find someone else, you can try again, it might work next time
You look out of the kitchen window and you shake your head and say low
"If I could believe that stuff, I'd say that woman as a halo"
And I look out and say, "Yeah, she's really blond"
And then I go outside and join the others -- I am the others
I don't know what you saw, I want somebody who sees me
I will not be afraid of women
I will not be afraid of women
"It's about taking a stand against insidious abuses," Dar explains. "A friend of mine, who is envied a lot for her beauty and magnetic personality, went out with someone who was not dynamic at all, who projected a lot of neurosis on to her by talking about other women. I once found myself in the same sort of situation, when a lover was quietly critical of things important to me. It was a hard relationship to get out of."
This song is about how women are so competitive with each other.....and overcoming that...that women should embrace each other..and not be threatened by one another..i have seen dar live tons of times..and she says that is where the song came from....dar is not bisexual and does not want to date women....women can be empowered without having sex with one another.... "So I watch the way you take your fear and horde the horizon You point, you have a word for every woman you can lay your eyes on" Women can be so petty sometimes...
I relate with this song so much. I only heard a snippet of it and I instantly knew what it was all about because it practically tells the story of a relationship I was in.
I was head over heels for this guy who was perfection to me. Everything about him was beautiful, but the way he treated me. I wasn't ugly...I was modeling, at the time for Christ's sake, but I felt invisible to him every time we went out together because he was always looking at every other woman in the room. He would tell me things like, "I've always loved blondes....I can't help but look at them." I am a blonde. He would make comments about every women under the guise that he just admired female beauty...from an almost artistic perspective, but it was all a lie and I knew it. My self esteem was so low and given my looks then, I shouldn't have been so self-conscious.
This song is an affirmation. What happens in these situations where women have been in relationships like mine is that you become increasingly bitter, jealous, and paranoid. You start hating other women and it drives you crazy whenever another woman is around - a habit that is self-destructive to your entire life. Many women never overcome this problem. They don't know how...but I did. I started realizing that the man was the one with the problem...and that I was also in the shoes of those women I hated for being pretty or attractive to my boyfriend. Somewhere, some poor girl in many instances had been seething in insane jealousy over me when her boyfriend looked at me.
It's a vicious cycle of turning women against women and it's only broken when the woman dating the jerk breaks the cycle and embraces womankind. That doesn't mean becoming a lesbian or a man-hating feminazi...it just means standing up for yourself, realizing your own self-worth, and not blaming other women (who can actually be your allies) for the shortcomings of a man who doesn't realize the harm his wandering eyes and remarks cause...or who does realize and just doesn't care.
It's a brilliant song. Dar is a brilliant, brilliant songwriter. I just heard this song two days ago...and I'm so hooked. This song really touched my heart and brought back the feelings of pain and hurt and the triumph of learning to overcome and be secure in your skin.
This was my getting over someone song. I found so many parallels with a relationship I had in this song and I found her words just said all I was trying to say.
I dated a guy who kept looking at other women while "keeping me on the hook" so to speak, and it made it difficult for me to recognize and maintain my own sense of value. I felt like he was pitting me against these other women and I knew that it wasn't their fault but it was hard not to be angry at them for being the objects of his affection when he was with me, hard to hear him wondering "is it how she moves or how she looks" and his clearly not understanding that "it's loneliness, suspended to our own like grappling hooks." or his wonderment over how beautiful other women were.
When she sang about how she goes "outside to join the others. I am the others". I remember when I recognized that. That I was just another woman, not the one he really wanted, not the perfect relationship he was dreaming of. And as she says, it wasn't easy... but it was so freeing.
This song also contains one of my favourite Dar lines of all time:"how I learned to dance when the music's ended." This phrase has hung around my life as a working definition of joy.
this song is incredible. it is about a woman empowering herself to leave an unhealthy relationship. this song is full of lines that I quote al the time "and so I'm leaving, you can find out how much better thinsg can get / and if it helps, I'd say I feel a little worse than I did when we met"
the bridge is an especially noteable part "you tried to make me doubt ... it just keeps going" What a fantastic song. Even musically, it's really really interesting.
This is a great song. I heard it first many years ago, and I was younger then, so i believed that when she said "i will not be afraid of women" she was saying that she shouldn't be afraid of them and date women. Not that that is bad, i just couldn't apply it to my own life. Now I believe that she is saying that she won't be afraid of other women who threaten her relationship. She is saying that if he is just looking at other women instead of her, it is better to leave than put herself through that, when she obviously deserves a better relationship than that. I love the sound of this song, it's so upbeat, but it's not overly intense. It sounds perfect, and I think it's wonderful...
this is a great song and i believe it's about staying in a relationship that was not good by any means but that she just stayed in b/c someone "loved" her. It's one of my favorites about her. my favorite part is ... "oh and thats not easy I don't know what you saw, I want somebody who sees me." Unfortunately it is misquoted here. I am a big Dar fan!
Dar is one of my absolute FAVORITE artists, i had the honor of meeting her a few years ago and she is just SO cool...this is definitely one of my favorites of hers. i love the message of becoming a strong independant woman who knows her worth and is no longer willing to settle for anything less than she deserves.
This is really a great song. I think its primarly about not being jealous any longer, and accepting the fact the person you're dating isn't blind to other people.
Why worry about the other woman?
Yeah, like braceface said, the last of the song is misquoted. Also, on the first singing of the chorus, it starts out, "I'm not that petty". This is a great song. It is the first Dar song I ever heard, I believe, and now I really like her. She is fun and insightful and has beautiful lyrics. My favorite parts are "You look out of the kitchen window and you shake your head and say low/'If I could believe that stuff, I'd say that woman has a halo.'/And I look out and say, "Yeah, she's really blond." and near the beginning, "You say you hope I'm not threatened/Oh, I'm not that petty". She really knows how to write life. Go Dar!