Story Behind The Song

When I first moved back to Portland (after living in Southern California for several years) I was low on cash, and in need of a place to live. Enter my roommate (a female) and her small home in what is known as ?the bad part of town?. She needed a renter, I needed a place to live, and the price was right. The Cathy in Stone Cathy is a composite of my aforementioned roommate and a few of her friends ? all good at heart, but all a little on the trashy side. Although my roommate wasn?t? an "exotic dancer", many of her friends were, and all of them (including my roommate) had what most would call a difficult childhood. After awhile these women began to open up to me because they viewed me as the one male figure in their lives that wasn?t out to get a little ?action? (even though I really was). They would talk freely about what they had been through, and it didn?t? seem to bother them at all, because they were all but oblivious to how those past experiences had affected their present day lives. It was sad and enlightening all at the same time. It was a very interesting time for me to say the least. I was constantly in the midst of beautiful but hardened girls who had lived a tough live ? ?hard as nails, cheap as dirt, lace on gasoline?. John

Song Description

"Cathy" has been hardend by the events in her life, but she still has moments of compassion, and wishes things could be like they used to be. She is a young woman on the inside, but on the surface she is bitter, street-wise, and volatile.

Lyrics

stone cathy

memories look just like shoes
head down heart is bruised
she can feel her pocket change
wants her life to do the same thing
probably never will still she smiles
the ghost is home again

she believes in angels and runaway trains
that her father will come back to her one day
she doesn?t like it that her mother drinks the rent
but that?s something you will never hear her say

a frozen face this photograph
a tiny world she folds in half
she walks away from time to time
to feel the way she used to
but she can?t get down
from this hole in the ground
and she doesn?t have a coat
is it over is it under
oh do they wonder why

she believes in angels and runaway trains
that her father will come back to her one day
she doesn?t like it that her mother drinks the rent
but that?s something you will never hear her say

no breakin? her heart in two
stone cathy
know tellin? her what to do
stone cathy
hard as nails cheap as dirt
lace on gasoline
cathy turned to stone?at seventeen

she believes in angels and runaway trains
that her father will come back to her one day
she doesn?t like it that her mother drinks the rent
but that?s something you will never hear her say

she believes that anger is a runaway train
and her father rode it out of here one day
she doesn?t like it that her mother laid the track
but that?s something you will never hear her say


lyrics ©2003 john martin
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