Small town stars shine bright for a day   The moon lights up a watery grave   Woods move in the nighttime breeze   That lifts from the lake through the trees   On the night that defined my name   Fantasy or monster, you say   Watched my boys ride the incline down   All for a paper gown      Long ago I used to be   A little girl on my daddy’s knee   Dreams lie like diamond rings   Babies and pretty things      I watched my car sink silently   My lover's sweatshirt wrapped around me   On a black man I blamed the crime   With moans and screams and cries   Then I waited for him to call   My ready-made family gone after all   While the world mourned an alibi   My hopes began to die      Long ago I used to be   A little girl on my daddy's knee   Dreams lie like diamond rings   Babies and pretty things      Day by day   All the promises faded away   No one but me   Controls my destiny      The sheriff sat me down to pray   At the First Baptist Church on the ninth day   "Susan, make your conscience clean"   "Sheriff, I've done a terrible thing"   I confessed that, for love’s sake   I drowned my children in John D. Long Lake   They're with Jesus, looking down   At me in this paper gown      Long ago I used to be   A little girl on my daddy's knee   Dreams lie like diamond rings   Babies and pretty things      Long ago I used to be   A little girl with dreams I believed   Dreams lie like diamond rings   Babies and pretty things