Rent

How do you document real life

When real life's getting more like fiction each day?

Headlines, bread-lines blow my mind

And now this deadline, eviction or pay rentHow do you write a song when the chords sound wrong

Though they once sounded right and rare?

When the notes are sour

Where is the power you once had to ignite the air?We're hungry and frozen, some life that we've chosen

How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay? Last year's rent?How do you start a fire when there's nothing to burn

And it feels like something's stuck in your flue?

How can you generate heat when you can't feel your feet?

And they're turning blueYou light up a mean blaze with posters and screenplays

How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay? Last year's rent?How do you stay on your feet when on every street?

It's trick or treat and tonight it's trick

Welcome back to town I should lie down

Everything's brown and uh-oh, I feel sickWhere is he? Getting dizzy

How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay? Last year's rent?The music ignites the night with passionate fire

The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit

Zoom in as they burn the past to the ground

And feel the heat of the future's glowHow do you leave the past behind

When it keeps finding ways to get to your heart?

It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out

'Til you're torn apart, rentHow can you connect in an age

Where strangers, landlords, lovers

Your own blood cells betray?What binds the fabric together

When the raging, shifting winds of change

Keep ripping awayDraw a line in the sand and then make a stand

Use your camera to spar, use your guitar

When they act tough, you call their bluffWe're not gonna pay, we're not gonna pay

We're not gonna pay, last year's rent

This year's rent, next year's rentRent, rent, rent, rent, rent

We're not gonna pay rent

'Cause everything is rent