touring the continent 

with counterfeiters 

on the corporation’s nickel 

 

drinking in the 

neighborhoods

where white girls don’t go 

 

improvising 

spotlessly while drunk 

the label asking for more control 

 

never having 

to work a job 

barely ever playing a show 

 

skipping through   

hundred thousand more dollars

before anyone pulled the plug 

 

see her look 

on thousands of covers 

name-checked by thousands more 

 

very few have cracked 

her combination

of quark, strangeness, and charm