Tonya's Twirls - Loudon Wainwright III

You knew she was in trouble when you saw her bodyguard

When you saw those two together, you knew it wasn’t hard

To see that she was different, not just one of the girls

With their gliding and their sliding and their pirouettes and twirls

Then it turned out that she smoked and drank and posed practically nude

And she didn’t smile all of the time, she got angry, and was crude

No, she wasn’t goody-two-skates, like all the other girls

With their grinning and their spinning and their winning little twirls

And her childhood was unhappy, and her mom was really weird

Her husband liked to hit her but it was poverty she feared!

'Cos she grew up in the trailer parks not like most other girls

With their gliding and their sliding and their whirling little twirls, yeah

Yes, they all look like princesses, little barbies, to the core

But she was your parents' worst nightmare: the slut who moved next door

From the wrong side of the track, she liked the boys more than the girls

With their gliding and their sliding and their girlish dainty twirls--

And it seemed like she was lying, about what she didn’t know

And then she started crying in the media sideshow

And in practice she kept falling down more than the other girls!

With their gliding and their sliding and their picture perfect twirls

And they almost towed her truck way, uh, the whole thing was a drag

Forget about Campbell Soup and Reebok, Weedy’s or the flag

Huh, there’ll be books, she’ll make some money, that’s what they’re after,

all these girls

With their selling, kiss-and-telling, and their twisted little twirls

So play the National Anthem, stand up proud and tall

Ooh, we hope that ours don’t stumble, and that theirs slip and fall

Remember Olga Korbut, what happens to these girls?

With their triple-flips and axels, and their somersaults and twirls--

Ice used to be a nice thing, when you laced up figure skates

Now it’s a thing to win a medal on, for the United States

But once there were no lutzes, axels, pirouettes or twirls

Just giddy, slipping, sliding, laughing, happy little girls!