Lyrics Daddy - Sylvia Plath

Daddy

You do not do, you do not do
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo
Daddy, I have had to kill you
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset
I used to pray to recover you
Ach, du
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars
But the name of the town is common
Says there are a dozen or two
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root
I never could talk to you
The tongue stuck in my jaw
It stuck in a barb wire snare
Ich, ich, ich, ich
I could hardly speak
I thought every German was you
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen
I began to talk like a Jew
I think I may well be a Jew
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew
I have always been scared of you
With your Luftwaffe, your
gobbledygoo
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through
Every woman adores a Fascist
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you
You stand at the blackboard, daddy
In the picture I have of you
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two
I was ten when they buried you
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you
I thought even the bones would do
But they pulled me out of the sack
And they stuck me together with glue
And then I knew what to do
I made a model of you
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw
And I said I do, I do
So daddy, I’m finally through
The black telephone’s off at the root
The voices just can’t worm through
If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year
Seven years, if you want to know
Daddy, you can lie back now
There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you
They are dancing and stamping on you
They always knew it was you
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through