Life In 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 with 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

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 a 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 old 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 side
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