So you found yourself a corner apartment With a view of the town all your own All your friends say The city's gonna kill you or cure you Five flights of stairs to your home
And even now, It's changed how you walk in the street Past cabbies and chimney sweeps Be careful with whom you should speak to
(chorus) What has this city done to you? Has it taken the small town out of you and turned you into someone I never knew?
When we were kids In the warmth of a porch light You'd smuggle out twin cigarettes blowin' smoke in the air With typical hometown flair Two futures we could not predict
And look at you now, When'd you lose sight of our plans For the writer and the music man Our faces on magazine stands
(chorus)
What has this city done to you? Don't let it take the small town out of you and turned you into someone I never knew? Did I ever know you?
Do you know how you light up these buildings? You can turn the head of a man whose grown old You're a candle when the streets grow cold
I can hear a cricket in your fifth floor apartment It's 3 AM Back home he'd put me to sleep But he's fighting to be heard He can't get in a word 'Cause there's a fool Laughing outside in the street
Where are you now? I lost you outside on Montague Street To the city that never will sleep Is it the sideshow in you That it speaks to?