Electric City

You were thrown into a tin can

And you learned how to beg and borrow

And you grew into a thin man

In the land of success, sin and sorrow

Now you're sleeping in a suitcase

With a pill bottle for a pillow

When you're hanging by a shoelace

It can get to be hard to swallow

When you're spinning on the subway

Naked lights sent in on the river

No you're never gonna leave her

Though you think someday that you might forgive her

Slipping into a slow dive

Cold black water makes you follow

Swimming into a spiral

Still you're singing

Shine, electric city, shine

In the cool of your emptiness

Around the curve of your spine

Come on and shine, electric city, shine

Like six thousand wings in the sky

Over the scene of the crime

When you come to an ending

Never reaching no conclusion

And you're sick of bending

In us and every fresh contusion

When you're lying in the soft arms

Of a silent ambulance that's speeding

And you're trying to tell the doctor that it's only a broken heart

You don't have to be a soldier to fight

But you'd better have a killer in you

You don't have to be a poet to die

It's the little things that kill you

Everybody gets a bad break

A little hit of pain and sorrow

Just forget about tomorrow

Keep on singing

Shine, electric city, shine

From the back of the cold beyond

Out to the end of the line

Come on and shine, electric city, shine

Like the sun in a hurricane's eye

Diamonds drowning in brine

Come on and shine

Shine

Shine

Shine