Throughout my life I have taken great inspiration from singer-songwriters such as Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams and of course Dolly Parton, even if I might have rather diverging opinions on some issues with the latter. Recently I have been listening to ‘Redesigning Women’ by The Highwomen, which is a group consisting of Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires. The rest of their eponymous album, notably the title track also called Highwomen, which brings tears to my eyes, is great, too.
The lyrics of the track Highwomen are a homage to the universal woman, not the Universal Soldier, whose continuous sacrifices keep visions and dreams of a greater good alive; while the lyrics of ‘Redesigning Women’ reflects content of debates around such terms as ‘care economy’, ‘ecofeminism’ and ‘subsistence’, highlighting the often disregarded and invisible contribution of women. Work that is taken for granted, sometimes degraded – by men and women alike – but which is work that has got to be done if we want to see tomorrow. The Redesigning Women lyrics are pasted below, find the music where you normally find your music – and enjoy:
[First verse]
Full-time living on a half-time schedule
Always trying to make everybody feel special
Learning when to brake and when to hit the pedal
Working hard to look good ’til we die
A critical reason there’s a population
Raising eyebrows and a new generation
Rosie the Riveter with renovations
And always gets better with wine
[Chorus]
Redesigning women
Running the world while we’re cleaning up the kitchen
Making bank, shaking hands, driving 80
Trying to get home just to feed the baby
Skipping the bread for the butter
Changing our minds like we change our hair color
Yeah, ever since the beginning
We’ve been redesigning women
[Second verse ]
Pulling up the floors and changing out the curtains
Some of us are saints and some of us are surgeons
Made in God’s image, just a better version
And breaking every Jell-O mold
And when we love someone, we take ’em to heaven
And if the shoe fits, we’re gonna buy 11
How we get it done, we like to keep ’em guessing
But secretly, we all know
[Chorus]
Redesigning women
Running the world while we’re cleaning up the kitchen
Making bank, shaking hands, driving 80
Trying to get home just to feed the baby
Skipping the bread for the butter
Changing our minds like we change our hair color
Yeah, ever since the beginning
We’ve been redesigning women
[Bridge]
How do we do it? How do we do it?
Make it up as we go along
How do we do it? How do we do it?
Halfway right and halfway wrong
[Chorus]
Redesigning women
Running the world while we’re cleaning up the kitchen
Making bank, shaking hands, driving 80
Trying to get home just to feed the baby
Skipping the bread for the butter
Changing our minds like we change our hair color
Yeah, ever since the beginning
We’ve been redesigning women