I won the parent lottery, my parents were so good to me
In a safe and prosperous place, I grew up in a time of peace
Like every child I had my fears
But they stood by me through the years
In time I came to realize, not everybody lives a life of ease
It was an accident of birth, how much a life is worth
In a particular time and place, it was nothing that I deserved
It's really such a mystery, where we land in human history
It's only just an accident, an accident of birth
If I'd been born some years before, I might have been sent off to war
In a different time or place, I could have been a peasant or a slave
I never had to do without, or suffer famine's angry drought
If we go back far enough, I might have grown up living in a cave
It was an accident of birth, how much a life is worth
In a particular time and place, it was nothing that I deserved
It's really such a mystery, where we land in human history
It's only just an accident, an accident of birth
She grew up fifteen miles away, our stories are like night and day
The daughter of an addict, on the streets, abandoned and abused
And though she learned to rise above, a life so hard, with little love
If she had another chance
You know it wouldn't be the life she'd choose
It was an accident of birth, how much a life is worth
In a particular time and place, it was nothing that I deserved
It's really such a mystery, where we land in human history
It's only just an accident, an accident of birth
It's only just an accident, an accident of birth
