Rent

How do you document real life

When real life's getting more like fiction each day?

Headlines, bread lines blow my mind

And now this deadline, eviction or pay

Rent!

How do you write a song when the chords sound wrong

Though they once sounded right and rare?

When the notes are sour, where is the power

You once had to ignite the air?

We're hungry and frozen

Some life that we've chosen

How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay

Last year's rent?

How do you start a fire when there's nothing to burn

And it feels like something's stuck in your flue?

How can you generate heat

When you can't feel your feet and we're turning blue?

You light up a mean blaze

With posters and screenplays

How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay

Last year's rent?

Don't scream, Maureen, it's me

Joanne, your substitute production manager

Hey, hey, hey

Did you eat?

Don't change the subject, Maureen

But, darling, you haven't eaten all day

You won't throw up, you won't throw up

The digital delay didn't blow up exactly

There may have been one teeny, tiny spark

You're not calling Mark

How do you stay on your feet, when on every street

It's trick or treat, and tonight it's trick?

Welcome back to town, I should lie down

Everything's brown and, I feel sick

Where is he?

Gettin' dizzy

How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay?

How we gonna pay

Last year's rent?

Allison, baby, you sound sad

I can't believe those two, after everything I've done

Ever since our wedding, I'm dirt

They'll see, I can help them all out in the long run

The music ignites the night with passionate fire

Maureen, I'm not a theater person

The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit

Could never be a theater person

I can't thank the man as they burn the past to the ground

Hello?

You feel the heat of the future's glow

Hello? Maureen? Your equipment won't work?

Okay, alright, I'll go

How do you leave the past behind

When it keeps finding ways to get to your heart?

It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out

Till you're torn apart

Rent!

How can you connect in an age

Where strangers, landlords, lovers your own blood cells betray?

What binds the fabric together

When the raging, shifting winds of change keep ripping away?

Draw a line in the sand, and then make a stand

Use your camera to spar, use your guitar

When they act tough, you call their bluff

We're not gonna pay

We're not gonna pay

We're not gonna pay

Last year's rent

This year's rent

Next year's rent

Rent, rent, rent, rent, rent

We're not gonna pay rent

'Cause everything is rent