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