A Better Life

It’s cold in January on a cardboard mattress,

Dreaming dreams of yesterdays,

In her subconscious the world’s all right,

The bad things are happening far away.

Her Mama’s gone off to visit her sister,

She’s alone with her daddy tonight,

Sitting at the door he watches her undress,

She’s too afraid to switch of the light.

There’s a time and place for everything,

So they tell me on the radio,

The sun is shining everything’s all right,

But what do they really know.

There’s a world out there full of the forgotten,

Without a bed to sleep in tonight,

No matter how they got there their dreams are the same,

They’re all dreaming of a better life.

It’s cold and damp there in the doorway,

As he lays his head down to rest,

He can still remember all his friends’ faces,

When he told them he was off to the west.

Bittersweet thoughts are lacing his memories,

The tears rolling down his mother’s face,

He packed in his job got onto the first train,

Believing he was going to a better place.

There’s a time and place for everything,

So they tell me on the radio,

The sun is shining everything’s all right,

But what do they really know.

There’s a world out there full of the forgotten,

Without a bed to sleep in tonight,

No matter how they got there their dreams are the same,

They’re all dreaming of a better life.

The men are fighting down in the subway,

And the little boy he finds it hard to hide,

His sisters crying scared by the raised voices,

All he can do is wipe the tear from her eye.

His father’s in prison her mother’s addicted,

The social services want to take them away,

They couldn’t promise they’d be living together,

So they packed their things and ran away.

There’s a time and place for everything,

So they tell me on the radio,

The sun is shining everything’s all right,

But what do they really know.

There’s a world out there full of the forgotten,

Without a bed to sleep in tonight,

No matter how they got there their dreams are the same,

They’re all dreaming of a better life.

There’s a time and place for everything,

So they tell me on the radio,

The sun is shining everything’s all right,

But what do they really know.

There’s a world out there full of the forgotten,

Without a bed to sleep in tonight,

No matter how they got there their dreams are the same,

They’re all dreaming of a better life.