[Chorus: Common & Maimouna Youssef]
How beautiful love can be
On the streets, love is hard to see (Yeah)
It's a place I got to be
Loving you is loving me
How beautiful love can be
On the streets, love is hard to see
Gotta reach that frequency
Loving you is loving me
[Verse 1: Common]
Yeah, you know what love is
Even found it on the ground where the thugs live
My man had to dig deep to find his
Couldn't sleep, 'cause, on the real, he had five kids
Live nigs, real niggas express and chase it
In crap games, black dames, and big faces
Cases in court, fam showing love and support
You and your baby's mom thought that love was a sport
As men, we were taught to hold it in
That's why we don't know how 'til we older men (Yeah)
If love is a place, I'ma go again
At least now, now I know to go within
At times, it can take ya for a spin
Heartbreak Hotel, then you're home again
I've seen love make a nigga's soul pretend
Like a story that he don't want to end (Yo!)
[Chorus: Common & Maimouna Youssef]
How beautiful love can be
On the streets, love is hard to see
It's a place I got to be
Loving you is loving me
How beautiful love can be
On the streets, love is hard to see
Gotta reach that frequency
Loving you is loving me
[Verse 2: Common]
It's all love where we come from
In the hood – love, we was told to run from
That same hood where the guns sung
We holla love, hoping it'd become one
Crack got so many lives undone
From lack of love, many hide, some run
I knew this girl with a son who dreamt of acting in plays
Demonstration with her man had her trapped in a maze
Trying to find herself again, much of that she'd have gave
Love can free us; to it, some react as a slave
Funny, we love 'em more when they're relaxed in a grave
Wonder if a thug is raw, is he actin' afraid?
Everybody loves sun, why do I attract shade?
Heard of the love of money–but compassion, it pays
Talk about it with my youth, so she understand
What it is to be loved by a man – uhh
[Chorus: Common & Maimouna Youssef]
How beautiful love can be
On the streets, love is hard to see (Yeah)
It's a place I got to be (Woo)
Loving you is loving me (Keep)
How beautiful love can be
On the streets, love is hard to see
Gotta reach that frequency
Loving you is loving me
[Verse 3: Common]
Some say that I'm a dreamer, 'cause I talk about it often
Seen the hardest nigga soften wit' his homie in a coffin
We walk and stand in, fall in it
With the right companion, we all in it
Mary sang a song about it having broad limits
In the game of life, it's the scrimmage
Reminiscing on letters I wrote in my small days
A letter to the people – love always (Yeah!)
[Chorus: Common & Maimouna Youssef]
How beautiful love can be (Woo!)
On the streets, love is hard to see
It's a place I got to be
Loving you is loving me
How beautiful love can be
On the streets, love is hard to see
Gotta reach that frequency
Loving you is loving me