bn_songbook | As Slow As I Am

A song about the experience of being, or wishing to be, a sloth. Also I got the refrain in my head and couldn't unhear it.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "As Cool As I Am" by Dar Williams

/ C G Am F / / Am - / 1st / / / Am - / G - Em - / F - - - /

Out here on a limb, I've never been a swinger, I'm a climber

Metro Zoo, Jungle World, hanging out with all the lianas

Then one day I saw you there in the enclosure next to mine

And so I watched the way you'd swing out into space with abandon

As if you knew there'd be another branch for you to lay your hand on

Like you own the jungle canopy for sure

And if kids wish they could swing like that, I'm not threatened, whoa...

/ C - G - / Am - F - / C G Am F / /

I'm not that speedy, as slow as I am, I know the zoo's gonna to feed me

I will not be afraid of gibbons, I will not be afraid of gibbons

The children at the zoo see something like a tattered dirty cloth

And the zoo docent says, you're looking at a slow descending sloth

And the school kids are trying hard to ask a clever question like:

There's something weird about her, is it how she moves or how she looks?

The docent says, see, she's suspended from her tree by grappling hooks

Then the kids march on like ants along a vine

They look at you and dream they too could fly with their arms extended, whoa...

I'm not that speedy, as slow as I am, I want somebody to need me

I will not be afraid of gibbons, I will not be afraid of gibbons

There's a little girl, eyes full of tears, trapped within the jungle of her fears

If she doesn't want to swing and all, maybe it's 'cause she's afraid to fall

Isn't there supposed to be an animal in there?

But all she sees are vines and twigs and leaves, still she just keeps looking, whoa...

And what she doesn't see reveals another way to cope with loss

Sit very still and dissappear behind the color of moss

Then it starts to rain a bit, and gradually, I start to move

And as she's watching me slowly crawl in out of the weather

She knows she too can hang in tight and wait for things to get better

She looks down and sees her classmates moving on

And then she runs along to join the others, we are the others

I might not be speedy, but slow as I am, I'm glad that somebody sees me

I will not be afraid of gibbons, I will not be afraid of gibbons

Ben's Songs