Pregnant teens on the Barton street bus   Homeless people are living off crust   And there's a beat up town car   It's starting to rust   Hard soles are kicking up dust   Half a million people living in the corpse of the brown brick 50's   To the north, all the small town outcasts   Now big city bourgeoisie      All the boys in the halfway houses   Wave to the girls of Emerald Street      Our calloused fingers, blood red on the brick   But we hold on   (Hold on)   We'll never falter, though they want us to slip   We hold on   (Hold on)      The desperate, downtown stealing bikes   Drunks in the village are picking fights   So police line the streets to read them their rights   No controlling hot summer nights   The sun goes down on the edge of town, at the end of every day   We sit and watch the stacks, on fire, to the east across the bay      All the boys in the halfway houses    Wave to the girls of Emerald Street      Our calloused fingers, blood red on the brick   But we hold on   (Hold on)   We'll never falter, though they want us to slip   We hold on   (Hold on)      There's something in the church belfry    On the corner of Victoria and King   And it screams out into the night   It sings this city's plight      All the boys in the halfway houses    Wave to the girls of Emerald Street   (Hold on)   (Hold on)      Our calloused fingers, blood red on the brick   But we hold on   (Hold on)   We'll never falter, though they want us to slip   We hold on   (Hold on)