Born and Bred

Born and Bred
This city, girl, will eat you up and spit you out for breakfast
Making you wish you never dared step foot on bedrock
A town that doesn't want to know your name
Or care one damn bit where you cut your teeth
It's the music of the trains as they go clacking by
It's the hot breath of the steam vent dragons
And don't be askin' for a map to the stars
They walk over the bums and put change in the cups
Just like everyone else who then pretends not to see
Easing their conscience, spending even more for a coffee
It's the nannies pickin' up the school kids in yellow taxis
It's gambling and chickens hanging down in Chinatown
So easy getting around the joint if you just remember
The aves run north and south and the streets go across
Except for the village maze, always worth getting lost in
the real foods on second ave and under all the bridges
It's the Wall Street thieves in their Brooks Brothers suits
It's the shows going on every night up on broadway.
City so jaded no one dreams anymore cept'n cabbies
Paying a mortgage to rent a million dollar medallion
Of Course they're rippin' you off, comes free with the ride
Just the name of the game, ain't no Cash Cab for you.
It's the marijuana delivery boys on messenger bikes
It's the carriage horses dropping dead, still shackled
Skyscrapers, brownstones and a gentrified lower east side
A punk ass freedom tower cause they didn't have the balls
To build something taller and better, a fuck you to the past
A bull runs up broadway and Billy Joel's in the Garden
It's the canyon of heroes, clubland meat packing district
It's Trinity graveyard and B-ball in the fenced courts
He reminds us, theres a big red nuclear target on our backs
Yes, we know Mr President, we've seen the planes
And the grey ghosts of the living streaming over bridges
While children waited for their parents to come home
It's the biggest, the baddest, the rudest, the nameless
It's Battery landfill and perilous cranes swinging overhead
So girl, you just put your head down and your collar up
And walk with all you've got against the wind, pushin'
Cause if you slow the pace they'll walk right through you
And some street artist will use your blood as his paint.
©MCM~2014