Doors to My Mind (Frankie Armstrong) I've been told since a kid in my cradle To be ladylike sweet and demure To rely on my elders and betters And I'd grow up loved and secure As a kid I was sent to a convent And it wasn't that they were unkind But they told me that school was to teach me to learn Then they locked up the doors to my mind I felt trapped like a bird in a cold iron cage So l ran to the rocks and the sea Flew away from that cage of a convent But the nuns send the cops after me They followed, they cornered, they caught me Had me up at a Juvenile Court The Magistrate said "You're an ungrateful girl It's approved school that deals with your sort" Now I'd never known what you'd call a real home Even less had I known a real bloke So that cooking and sewing and home care Seemed like a cruel joke I couldn't take all their preaching So up to the city I fled When you're feeling as lonely as I did Your price is a meal or a bed And though men were the custom I dealt with It was me that they clapped in the pen The man at the bench put the blame square on me For the laws are made by and for men When a woman comes out of a prison Life's hard as hell outside But there's ways to forget all the hurt and the rage And to climb from the depths to a high But the high it was never for ever And always the pain burned back through When you're way past despair, past caring to care There seems nothing that no one can do It was stomach pumps, shrinks, social workers Most of them sold on square lies Never questioning all of the rules they obey Never asking the hows and the whys One question I'd always been asking Was "Why should this happen to me?" There my sisters helped me feel how we all get this deal That's what they don't want us to see For the first time I've pride and respect now And some power to change things myself So we need not be outcasts, my sisters. If we stand up and fight for ourselves Written and recorded by Frankie Armstrong SOF
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