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