Real

Intro: (twice) Five-hundred channels and there ain't much on tonight But reality shows about some folk's so-called lives A pretty girl cries 'cause she don't get a rose But she'll find love next year on her own show And they call that real Real is a hand you hold fifty-seven years Real is a band of gold tremblin' with fear It's the first long tear down an old man's face, watchin' his angel slippin' away His heart's so broke, it's never gonna heal I call that real Where I live, housewives don't act like that And the survivors are farmers in John Deere hats Our amazin' race is beatin' the check Prayin' that the bank ain't ran it through yet Real, like too much rain fallin' from the sky Real, like the drought that came around here last July It's the damn boll weevils and the market and the weeds, the prayer they're sayin' when they plant the seeds And the chance they take to bring us our next meal I call that real Real, like a job you lose 'cause it moves to Mexico Like a mama and a baby with no safe place to go Like a little dream house with a big old foreclosed sign Like a flag-draped coffin and a twenty-one gun goodbye I call that real Man, I call that real Oh, I call that real