Life in a Tenement Square

Well, I kissed the day, I was on my way
From those cold gray blocks of stone
For seventeen years of squalor filled tears
A time now and innocence lost

As the sun split the room with its rays filled with gloom
Turnin' all hope to despair
And the only thing left was to flee from the nest
That was life in a tenement square, yeah

I remember the song where the rats sang along
And danced for their daily bread
While the damp washed the walls that were twenty feet tall
Not a child in the house was fed

On the porter filled face of the men left no trace
Of the coin they had already spent
While our mothers asked God what was Hell ever for
When you lived in a tenement square?

Grab what's left of the coal from the ol' cubbyhole
These cinders need more to be a fire
While the ghosts of the soldiers that lived there before us
Laugh with their guns by their sides
I hear them laugh with their guns by their side

Now politicians they dwell in that forgotten Hell
Our misery's been turned into mews
Where the fat of the land, now hog, hand-in-hand
A crime now of life was ever true

As the sun split the room with its rays filled with gloom
Turnin' all hope to despair
And the only thing left was to flee from the nest
That was life in a tenement square