Give a Damn

If you'd take the train with me Uptown, thru the misery Of ghetto streets in morning light, It's always night. Take a window seat, put down your Times, You can read between the lines, Just meet the faces that you meet Beyond the window's pane. And it might begin to teach you How to give a damn about your fellow man. And it might begin to teach you How to give a damn about your fellow man. Or put your girl to sleep sometime With rats instead of nursery rhymes, With hunger and your other children By her side, And wonder if you'll share your bed With something else which must be fed, For fear may lie beside you Or it may sleep down the hall. [Chorus] Come and see how well despair Is seasoned by the stif'ling air, See your ghetto in the good old Sizzling summertime. Suppose the streets were all on fire The flames like tempers leaping higher Suppose you'd lived there all your life, D'you think that you would mind? And it might begin to reach you Why I give a damn about my fellow man; And it might begin to teach you How to give a damn about your fellow man