Capo 3rd fret

Standard (EADGBE)

Intro

Five-hundred channels and there ain't much on tonight

 But 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

Chorus

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

Chorus

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