Life moves pretty fast
You don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it
Look, I've been away from my city, the city's changes aint pretty
Theys still be playing the dizzy
Forgotten corners, the city's forgotten its warriors
Who died young, i ain't taking the sun is shining before us
I rhyme, rotten bodies fertilizing the forest of concrete and glass
Foul hearted police aiming their gas
My head hangover beats my hope goes slaying the past
And days i couldn't glade to the pack
We the same kids they'd be sending to invade Iraq, and they per say to crack
I got that Gray Goose and OJ in the glass
The last day before my cousin hit the pen down the swing
I came back to the town just to be down with the king
And love is surrounding it seems
Just then he find out it his baby cousin fell off a balcony
Images of involving paradise is drowning me
Lost souls and I can't let go until no
The same scenario that rules double bello
Black, brownted yellow
Southsiders tell the devil hello
And heaven by and it hurts to much to ask why
From places of plenty to the space with no pity the force is changing our city
One day at a time
If I don't change whats been given
What can I say to my children who gonna be claiming this city
One day at a time
I grew up on Capitol Hill
With two parents and two cars
They had a beautiful marriage, we even had a swing set in our yard
My mom didn't have a job, because my dad made enough money
That we could live comfortably and he could support us
Now, he commute to Tacoma, so we knew we be good
But then I realized everybody looked just like me in my neighborhood
I go to school, which was diverse
But indeed us, I got sandwiches and carpi suns well my friends ate their free lunch
It's crazy trying to look back, cause when I was growing up
I didn't understand the fact was there's something called a social status
And my black friends wanted my financial bracket
And then my city's divided
From neighborhood to neighborhood
We're polarized but we claim we're progressive
The police shoot in the hood but never once in my residence
As a white person been shot at we'd stopped in a Lexus
And to think that we have claimed that so much has changed
Since Brown verses the bored of education and Roe verses Wade
But around my way it all stays the same
They just figured out a way to septate the black and white ways
From places of plenty to the space with no pity the force is changing our city
One day at a time
If I don't change whats been given
What can I say to my children who gonna be claiming this city
One day at a time
From places of plenty to the space with no pity the force is changing our city
One day at a time
If I don't change whats been given
What can I say to my children who gonna be claiming this city
One day at a time
Say its the richest city in the world
Riding, its just a pimp city in the shadows of Amazon's office site
And the jungle down the slide in Jose Rizas park
Its hard in the gate with a trail to a place over I-5
Where families survive, most my early life we'd known about it
Called development
They kick them folks out and move them around every chance they can
Since so sacred of homelessness but ignoring them ain't goin' to change it
And tearing down there decks ain't gonna make your ass safer
For all that paper wasting, just to build up Safeco
While Garfeild High School still remains like a slave boat
Oh, we gave up on hope a long time ago son
I woke on this floor after pacing hours before, mind racing like a child torn in war zones
With every side challenge we need to manage and understand this balance I can't fall or falter
Brother, I'm just the author and no amount of words offered is ever been enough
Alter this system swallowing souls broke my own folks from up coast
Only dreams close of what America was supposed to be
But works for rich only the south in reality
Take my family back to what they were running from before, when they left that war
Same shit, different continent
Home don't exist anymore
Home don't exist anymore
The 206 today is just ain't the same
Claiming The City Lyrics performed by Macklemore are property and copyright of the authors, artists and labels. You should note that Claiming The City Lyrics performed by Macklemore is only provided for educational purposes only and if you like the song you should buy the CD