| We’ll live out our lives on this dirty old street
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| Only because we just can’t compete
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| But in the concrete of our younger days, we left our names
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| Just like the people before, when they reached
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| The distant shore with their drink and their dance
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| And their dreams and sincere aims
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| Ghosts long gone, through old buildings they stare
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| With their offspring staring at me for they are still there
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| Dreams that are dead and lives not realized
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| Why did we write our names in these streets
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| To show we’re alive?
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| Well, Chicago is my home and I’ll never want to roam
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| To live on any sun swept distant shore
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| Well, it is where I was reared by forbearers so revered
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| And I sing the songs that they all sang before
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| Well, any woman that’s neared me
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| Has been repelled most thoroughly
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| Still I’m a lover God, I am foremost of all
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| A musician that’s my call of high degree professional
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| But I’m afraid I do not know my trade at all
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| And if it’s every twenty years
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| Some small relief to me appears
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| Then the crock of gold will wait until that day
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| To defend myself no more
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| Lay the shield of anger at my door
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| And the sword of alcohol will stow away
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| All the people in our town are overworked and broken down
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| Begging cheques but it’s just not enough they’re giving
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| Crying quietly, living life so desperately
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| That something has to make this life worth living
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| Real life is only a timeline
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| And the excitement holds the short times
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| It will never measure up to what TV sells as great
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| All the drunken jokes and views
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| Exciting pubs they tell the news
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| But the exciting pats, well, they just weren’t all that great
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| I met a girl one night and enchantment fixed our sight
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| So we decided we would hold it for awhile
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| But she would not love me, so inside me finally said
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| «It's not your fault.»
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| But I would like love if only for a while
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| Well, it’s on and on I’ve seen, yeah that’s how it’s always been
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| And how it will be as ever on I go
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| Oh, but ever on I will
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| Through all the banal times until I find some
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| Place to me that seems like home |