One's On The Way

The lyrics contrast glamorous, distant news about celebrities and public life with the speaker’s crowded, messy home in Topeka. Her day is filled with children, chores, interruptions, and another baby on the way. The mood is comic and lively, but also suggests fatigue: by the end, she jokes that she hopes she is not having twins again.

Everyday details make the pressure vivid: a dripping faucet, crying children, boiling coffee, and laundry that needs hanging. The repeated phrase “one’s on the way” means she is expecting a baby, while also serving as a punchline that makes her already busy life seem even more hectic. The lyrics mention “women’s lib,” or women’s liberation, and the birth-control pill as signs of wider social change, then set those ideas beside the speaker’s immediate domestic demands.

The song can be heard as affectionate humor about family life, but the contrast also hints at frustration. While other women appear to be enjoying fame, entertainment, or political action, this speaker is barely able to finish a phone call. Still, the lyrics do not make her feelings entirely clear: she sounds overwhelmed, yet her teasing remarks suggest warmth toward the children and a wry ability to laugh at her situation.