Emerald Street - Intellectual

[Verse 1]

Pregnant teens on the Barton Street bus

Homeless people living off crust

And there's a beat-up town car, it's starting to rust

Hard soles are kicking up dust

Half a million people living in the corpse of the brown brick 50's

To the north, all the small town outcasts are now the big city bourgeoisie

All the boys in the halfway houses

Wave to the girls of Emerald Street

Our calloused fingers, blood red on the brick

But we hold on (Hold on)

We'll never falter, though they want us to slip

We hold on

The desperate, downtown stealing bikes

Drunks in the village are picking fights

So, police line the streets to read them their rights

No controlling hot summer nights

The sun goes down on the edge of town, at the end of everyday

We sit and watch the stack, on fire, to the east across the bay

All the boys in the halfway houses

Wave to the girls of Emerald Street

Our calloused fingers, blood red on the brick

But we hold on (Hold on)

We'll never falter, though they want us to slip

We hold on (Hold on)

There's something in the church belfry

At the corner of Victoria and King

And it screams out into the night

It sings this city's plight

All the boys in the halfway houses

Wave to the girls of Emerald Street

Our calloused fingers, blood red on the brick

But we hold on (Hold on)

We'll never falter, though they want us to slip

We hold on