Karate Lyrics
"Concrete"

Reticent she returns to the streets Where she once
floated above in hospital sheets Hands on the walls
where small handprints still weigh With the burden
of crimson indelible paints Where are the hands that
once fit these young prints?
What have they grabbed at ever since?
Nights used to be dangerous here But now the mornings
have exceeded her deepest fears Because that's when
the concrete creeps in And perpetrates with more than
the greatest sins And weighs down on what used to be
known as the neighborhood Deliberate,
slow, destructive defeat As new corners consolidate
the neiborhood streets Where are the ones she stepped
with right here Below the bar,
now a bank clad with anonymous steel?
Where are the sounds of the childrens once heard?
Replaced with new parking and yellowed-out curbs Now
she can only afford to return For a doctor,
an in-law, or a day in the sun Some still cling,
if the building still stands Some sing liberation from
felonious hands But most will get lost in the peripheral
sprawl Where new handprints signify on old concrete
walls Florescent excuses for liht Steal all the shadows
from the nights Parody or progress?
You just want to tear it down As you're standing right
in the middle of the wrong side of town