Borderline - Joni Mitchell

Everybody looks so ill at ease

So distrustful so displeased

Running down the table

I see a borderline

Like a barbed wire fence

Strung tight, strung tense

Prickling with pretense

A borderline

Why are you smirking at your friend?

Is this to be the night when

All well-wishing ends?

All credibility revoked?

Thin skin, thick jokes!

Can we blame it on the smoke

This borderline?

Every bristling shaft of pride

Church or nation

Team or tribe

Every notion we subscribe to

Is just a borderline

Good or bad, we think we know

As if thinking makes things so!

All convictions grow along a borderline

Smug in your jaded expertise

You scathe the wonder world

And you praise barbarity

In this illusionary place--

This scared hard-edged rat race

All liberty is laced with

Borderlines

Every income, every age

Every fashion-plated rage

Every measure, every gauge

Creates a borderline

Every stone thrown through glass

Every mean-streets-kick ass

Every swan caught on the grass

Will draw a borderline

You snipe so steady

You snub so snide--

So ripe and ready

To diminish and deride!

You’re so quick to condescend

My opinionated friend

All you deface, all you defend

Is just a borderline

Just a borderline …

Another borderline …

Just a borderline