Tiffany Haynes

Ani Difranco, guitarist and singer, will perform in Minneapolis, Minn., April 22, at Cedar Cultural Center. The show is sold out, but not to worry. Her new live album, entitled “Ani Difranco Carnegie Hall 4.06.02,” hit shelves April 4.

This live album features nothing but a guitar and Difranco’s cutting- edge voice. Her singing is truly like something most have never heard.

This album was recorded on April 6, 2002, just seven months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. She was speaking to an audience of New Yorkers who had been breathing in the toxic air outside and dealing with their own personal feelings of loss and grief.

At the time of the recording, “Self Evident” was titled “Work in Progress.”

Excerpts from “Self Evident:” (editor’s note: lyrics appear as written on album cover) Yes, us people are just poems we’re 90% metaphor with a leanness of meaning approaching hyper-distillation and once upon a time we were moonshine rushing down the throat of a giraffe … yes, rushing down the long stairs with the whiskey of eternity fermented and distilled to eighteen minutes burning down our throats down the hall down the stairs in a building so tall … on the day that america fell to its knees after strutting around for a century without saying thank you or please and the shock was subsonic and the smoke was deafening between the setup and the punch line cuz we were all on time for work that day we all boarded that plane for to fly and then while the fires were raging we all climbed up on the windowsill and then we all held hands and jumped into the sky and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast … to participate in some prep school punk’s plan to perpetuate retribution … even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution is still hanging in the air and there’s ash on our shoes and there’s ash in our hair and there’s a fine silt on every mantle from hell’s kitchen to brooklyn and the streets are full of stories sudden twists and near misses … so here’s a toast to all the folks who live in palestine Afghanistan Iraq El salvador here’s a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation under the stone cold gaze of mt. Rushmore here’s a toast to all those nurses and doctors who daily provide women with a choice who stand down a threat the size of oklahoma City just to listen to a young woman’s voice … cuz take away our playstations and we are a third world nation under the thumb of some blue blood royal son who stole the oval office and that phony election I mean it don’t take a weatherman To look around and see the weather Jeb said he’d deliver Florida, folks and boy did he ever and we hold these truths to be self-evident #1 George W. Bush is not president #2 America is not a true democracy #3 The media is not fooling me cuz I am a poem heeding hyper-distillation I’ve got no room for a lie so verbose I’m looking out over my whole human family and I’m raising my glass in a toast here’s to our last drink of fossil fuels let us vow to get off this sauce shoo away the swarms of commuter planes … and then standing out on the platform and feeling the air on my face give back the night its distant whistle give the darkness back its soul give the big oil companies the finger finally and relearn how to rock-n-roll yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there so it’s time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets and clear the air get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand of someone else’s desert put it back in its pants and quit the hypocritical chants of freedom forever cuz when on telephone rang in two thousand and one at ten after nine one nine after nine on nine one one which is the number we all called when the lone phone rang right off the wall right off our desk and down the long hall down the long stairs in a building so tall that the whole world turned just to watch it fall … committing countless crimes against humanity with this kind of eventuality as its excuse for abuse after expensive abuse and it didn’t have a clue look, another window to see through way up here on the 104th floor look another key another door 10% literal 90% metaphor 3000 some poems disguised as people on an almost too perfect day should be more that pawns in some asshole’s passion play so now it’s your job and it’s my job to make it that way to make sure they didn’t die in vain sshhhhhh? baby listen hear the train?

-Ani Difranco

“I will always remember this performance of ‘Self Evident’ as being one of the most intense moments I have ever experienced on stage … ” said Difranco, in Buffalo, N.Y. on Jan. 15, 2006.

To be honest, I was not impressed with this album. But when I came across the words to track 14, “Self Evident,” I was full of admiration for her. I would suggest buying this album. Her words would make anyone think, whether they agree with what she said or not. She put her heart on the line for her beliefs, and I have nothing but respect for her.