Words and music copyright by
Howard Ashby Kranz
C G F-FM7 C
1. By the
creek, in the sand, to older eyes unshown,
C G F-FM7 C
Maggie Green, ten years old,
finds a shiny stone..
G
F FM7
And it looks like a cat’s
eye, so she takes it home,
G
F FM7
And she keeps in her secret
chest, with Grandma’s comb,
C G
F FM7
and later she holds the cat’s
eye to her own, and she begins to scan,
Am F-FM7 Am F FM7
and I can’t believe what I’m
seeing! Angry colors, glowing around
everything,
Am F FM7
Am
F FM7 G G7
like hands that grasp at me
in the air, and they can’t quite
reach me, but they’re always there.
C G F FM7 C
C G F FM7 C
2. Pretty
girl, Margaret: her pride will be her fall.
C G F-FM7 C
The fine young men she turns
away, soon she’ll have none at all,
G F FM7
and while plainer girls have
families, she’ll be too old soon;
G
F FM7
she’s got an old maid’s
oddness and an old maid’s gloom
C G
F
FM7
since a younger man she
seemed to like ran from the room, his face hidden in his hands,
Am
F-FM7
Am F
FM7
saying “I can’t believe what
I hear, and I can’t stop hearing it
since she touched my ear,
Am
F FM7
Am F FM7 G G7
the howling voices, the
mouths that gape, and their strength is
rising and there’s no escape!”
C F
FM7 G F C G F
FM7 C
C G F-FM7 C
3. Crazy old
old Ms Green lives on down the block,
C
G F-FM7 C
and the kids won’t step on
her sidewalk squares, and they tell how,
in the dark,
G F FM7
her eyes like a cat’s eyes
seem to glow,
G
F FM7
and Mother says, “Don’t
torment the woman so,”
C G F
FM7
and Father says it only goes
to show that a woman needs a man,
Am F-FM7 Am
F FM7
and you can’t believe what
you hear, and the crazy lady says we need not fear:
Am F FM7 Am F FM7 G G7
she says the outer forces are
turned back for a time; we must turn the fight inward, and she lowers her eyes.