West End Avenue Stephen Schwartz

[Cal]
All of your life you wake up to the taxis and the chimes
To the bathroom with the roaches and the breakfast with the Times
And you subway to school with kids whose folks all live in twenty blocks
In a high-rise rented carton or a co-op brownstone box, with double locks

West End Avenue
Babies in carts and poodles barking
West End Avenue
Planning your day around the parking
You tell yourself, "I will be free."
West End Avenue
You won't get me

All of your life you watch the shrinks and lawyers on parade
Watch the brokеrs in their worsted and the ad mеn in their suede
While upstairs a soprano tries to sing the waltz from "La Boheme."
And you watch 'em and you listen and you judge and you condemn
You're not like them

West End Avenue
Delis and laundromats and gay bars
West End Avenue
Only a block away from Zabars
But you were meant to really fly
West End Avenue
Good bye, good bye