Real

Five-hundred channels and there ain't much on tonight
 Except reality shows about some folk's so-called lives
 A pretty girl cries 'cause she don't get a rose
 But she'll find love next year on her own show
 And they call that real
 Real is a hand you hold fifty-seven years
 Real is a band of gold tremblin' with fear
 It's the first long tear down an old man's face,
 watchin' his angel slippin' away
 His heart's so broke, it's never gonna heal
 I call that real
 Where I live, housewives don't act like that
 And the survivors are farmers in John Deere hats
 Our amazin' race is beatin' the check
 Prayin' that the bank ain't ran it through yet
 Real, like too much rain fallin' from the sky
 Real, like the drought that came around here last July
 It's the damn boll weevils and the market and the weeds,
 the prayer they're sayin' when they plant the seeds
 And the chance they take to bring us our next meal
 I call that real
 Real, like a job you lose 'cause it moves to Mexico
 Like a mama and a baby with no safe place to go
 Like a little dream-house with a big old foreclosed sign
 Like a flag-draped coffin and a twenty-one gun goodbye
 I call that real
 Man, I call that real
 Oh, I call that real