Various Artists:

Rent Songtext

How do you document real life
When real life is 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

And 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

We light candles

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 they'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 screen, 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'
Oh, I should lie down
Everything's brown
And uh -- oh
I feel sick

Where is he?

Getting dizzy

How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
How we gonna pay
Last year's rent

Alison baby -- you sound sad
I don'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 theatre person

The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit

Could never be a theatre person

Zoom in as they burn the past to the ground
And feel the heat of the future's glow

Hello? Maureen?
Okay, all right, 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