Well, I kissed the day, I was on my way From those cold gray blocks of stone For 17 years of squalor-filled tears A time now and innocence lost As the sun split the room With it's rays filled with gloom Turning all hope to despair The only thing left was to flee from the nest That was life in a tenement square, yeah ♪ I remember the song when the rats sang along And danced for their daily bread While they 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 is hell ever for When you live 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 muse 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 it's rays filled with gloom Turning all hope to despair The only thing left was to flee from the nest That was life in a tenement square