[Verse 1: high clear soprano female lead, over the rolling drum and bass] Lane eight, the outside lane, the lane they give the ghost Oldest woman in the final, and they wrote me off the most Two bad knees and one bad year and every sponsor gone And the papers ran my goodbye like the race was already run Ten years younger, every one of them, in the lanes along my side And they're bouncin' on their toes, and I am breathin' slow inside [Chorus: high clear soprano female lead, the drums and bass rolling full] Count me out, they counted me out, ten, nine, eight and done Count me out, I heard 'em countin' every step I'd ever run But a count is just a number, and a number doesn't win You can count me out all day, the gun is gonna count me in [Verse 2: high clear soprano female lead, the reese bass growing] They count you out in boxing when you're lyin' on the floor I been lyin' on the floor, I been lyin' there before Surgery in winter, and by summer I could walk By the fall I ran a hundred, and the doctors had to talk Five A.M. on the high school track with nobody to see Just the sprinklers and the janitor, the stopwatch and me [Chorus: the drums and bass rolling full] Count me out, they counted me out, ten, nine, eight and done Count me out, I heard 'em countin' every step I'd ever run But a count is just a number, and a number doesn't win You can count me out all day, the gun is gonna count me in [Bridge: her voice over the strings, then everything cuts to one rimshot like a starting pistol, and the drum and bass breaks back in at once] On your marks, and sixty thousand people hold their breath Set, and I can hear my heartbeat louder than the rest And the countdown that they gave me isn't over, it's begun 'Cause a count is how a band starts, and a gun is how you run [Verse 3: high clear soprano female lead, full flight over the rolling drums] Out the blocks like I was twenty, and the first ten meters clean Forty meters, I'm in third, and I can feel the old machine Sixty meters, I'm in second, and the outside lane is wide Eighty meters, and the girl in four is fadin' at my side At the line I dip my chest the way my old coach used to teach And the board flips over, "Lane eight, first," and I can't even speak [Chorus: everything in, the strings at full height] Count me out, they counted me out, ten, nine, eight and done Count me out, I heard 'em countin' every step I'd ever run But a count is just a number, and a number doesn't win You can count me out all day, the gun is gonna count me in [End]
