[Produced by The Neptunes]

[Intro: JAY-Z & Pharrell]

Young! It's the life

Once again it's the life, yes

I don't know why, I... get so high, oh

It's intoxicating, man, y'all don't know why you do what you do

Get so high, oh, get so high, high off the life

[Verse 1: JAY-Z]

The allure of breaking the law

Was always too much for me to ever ignore

I've got a thing for the big-body Benzes, it dulls my senses

In love with a V-Dub engine

Man, I'm high off life – fuck it, I'm wasted

Bathing Ape kicks, Audemars Piguet wrist

My women-friends get tennis bracelets

Trips to Venice, get their winters replaced with

The sun – it ain't even fun no more, I'm jaded

Man, it's just a game, I just play it to play it

I put my feet in the footprints left to me

Without saying a word, the ghetto's got a mental telepathy

Man, my brother hustled so, naturally

Up next was me, but what perplexes me

Shit, I know how this movie ends, still I play

The starring role in "Hovito's Way"

[Chorus: JAY-Z & Pharrell]

It's just the life – I solemnly swear

To change my approach, stop shaving coke

Stay away from hoes, put down the toast

'Cause I be doing the most (Oh no!)

But every time I felt "That was that,"

It'd call me right back

It'd called me right back

Man, it'd call me right back (Oh no!)

[Verse 2: JAY-Z]

I'm like a Russian mobster, drinking distilled vodka

Until I'm under the field with Hoffa, it's real

Peel the top up like a toupée, mix the water with the soda

Turn the pot up, make a soufflé

All of y'all can get it like group-page on your two-way

I'm living proof that crime do pay

Say "hooray" to the bad guy, and all the broads

Putting cars in their name, for the stars of the game

Putting 'caine in they bras and their tomorrows on the train:

All in the name of love

Just to see that love locked in chains and the family came

Over the house, to take back everything that they claimed

Or even the worse pain is the distress, learning you're the mistress, 

Only after that love gets slain, and the anger and the sorrow mixed up

Leads to mistrust – now it gets tough to ever love again

But the allure of the game, keeps calling your name

To all the Lauras of the world, I feel your pain

To all the Christies in every cities and Tiffany Lanes:

We all hustlers in love with the same thing

[Chorus: JAY-Z & Pharrell]

It's just the life – I solemnly swear

To change my approach, stop shaving coke

Stay away from hoes, put down the toast

'Cause I be doing the most (Oh no!)

But every time I felt "That was that,"

It'd call me right back

It'd call me right back

Man, it'd call me right back (Oh no!)

[Verse 3: JAY-Z]

I never felt more alive than riding shotgun

In Klein's green 5', until the cops pulled guns

And I tried to smoke weed to give me the fix I need –

What the game did to my pulse – with no results

And you can treat your nose and still won't come close

The game is a light bulb with eleventy-million volts

And I'm just a moth addicted to the floss

The doors lift from the floor and the tops come off

By any means necessary, whatever the cost

Even if it means lives is lost

And I can't explain why I just love to get high

Drink, lights, smoke, the blueberry sky

Blink twice – I'm in the blueberry 5'

You blink three times – I may not even be alive

I mean, even James Dean couldn't escape the allure

Dying young, leaving a good-looking corpse

Of course...

[Chorus: JAY-Z & Pharrell]

I solemnly swear

To change my approach, stop shaving coke

Stay away from hoes, put down the toast

'Cause I be doing the most (Oh no!)

But every time I felt "That was that,"

It'd call me right back

It'd call me right back

Man, it called me right back (Oh no!)

[Outro: JAY-Z & Pharrell]

Once again, it's the life

Yeah, I said, it's the life

Once again, it's the life (Oh no!)

(I don't know why, I...)

(Get so high, oh...) Get so...

(Get so high, on...)

(Get so high, high off the life)