Fairmount Park

I grew up everywhere, Lehigh Avenue, Newkirk Street, 24th & Nicholas, right over there by Ridge Ave, cats out of Philly know, but I can’t forget about Fairmount Park

[Verse 1]
As a kid, coming up in Philly’s hard streets
Smoke in the air from the gun or weed
The marijuana master paranoia of living
In a rigged system of capitalism
Where the people at the bottom of the barrel
Out of despair’ll have you looking at the bottom of a [?]
We from the bottom [?] is how you would press a girl
The ghetto is a whole ‘nother world where you gotta be tough inside a prison yard
I mean a school yard, that’s where they school our kids on how to move hard
My grandfather used to kick it with them pool sharks
Telling tales of glory from the pool hall
I used to idolize him like a god figure
’til the day he came home on some hard liquor
Threatened to kill me if I didn’t leave
So I left, it was past midnight from my memory

[Chorus]
Of Fairmount
Of Fairmount Park
And even though my days were dark
Somehow, you have stayed in my heart
Fairmount Park

Of Fairmount
Of Fairmount Park
And even though it was hard
Somehow, you can never depart
Fairmount Park

[Verse 2]
I’m so afraid for my life, no more than eight or nine
And it’s so late in the night that everything is quiet
No cars riding by, not that I should hitchhike
I’ve seen America’s Most, they taking kids’ lives
I’m terrified of my shadow because it’s close to me
I have no friends or family I can go to see
Imagine walking an empty street
With no lights or path, well that was me
But I’m walking, taking every step with precaution
I know little about God but it’s time that I call him
Heading under a bridge, that’s a blanket of darkness
That’s where the bums live, hope I make it across then
I hear a voice and it sounds familiar yes
What little I can see I can see a silhouette
That looks like a friend of me
So I call out loud from my memory

[Chorus]
Of Fairmount
Of Fairmount Park
And even though my days were dark
Somehow, you have stayed in my heart
Fairmount Park

Of Fairmount
Of Fairmount Park
Even though it was hard
Somehow, you can never depart
Fairmount Park

[Verse 3]
The person replied, calling my name out
That’s when I run for it, this voice now I can make out
It’s the voice of my mother, there is no other
But what are the odds I run into her as I hug her?
I wanna say I suffered but I’m tryna be a man
Even though I’m just a kid with no concept of a dad
But more importantly, let’s get out of this place
And go somewhere far away so I can just lay
But we were poor so we went door to door
Who wants a bastard’s son and everybody’s whore?
That’s neighborhood talk, the kids call her piper
But she’s a queen to me if no one else likes her
But now I’m falling asleep, my legs weak
She’s telling me her boyfriend’s close so let’s keep
Walking, I smile as I see his apartment
Complex and now we just gotta be knocking
His lights were on, they went off and
Now mom’s angry, yelling and going off
In the middle of the street while I’m feeling like an orphan
I say, “I wanna sleep,” she says, “Ok I’m off him”
We head across the street to the popular park
And find ourselves at 9th Street and park it
She sits down as I lay in her arms in
Fairmount Park so that’s where the story and the song ends