Rent - Original Broadway Cast

How do you document real life
When real life's getting more like fiction each day?
Headlines, bread-lines blow my mind
And now this deadline, eviction or pay rent

How do you write a song when the chords sound wrong
Though they once sounded right and rare?
When the notes are sour
Where is the power you once had to ignite the air?

We're hungry and frozen, some life that we've chosen
How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay? Last year's rent?

How do you start a fire when there's nothing to burn
And it feels like something's stuck in your flue?
How can you generate heat when you can't feel your feet?
And they're turning blue

You light up a mean blaze with posters and screenplays
How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay? Last year's rent?

How do you stay on your feet when on every street?
It's trick or treat and tonight it's trick
Welcome back to town I should lie down
Everything's brown and uh-oh, I feel sick

Where is he? Getting dizzy
How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay?
How we gonna pay? Last year's rent?

The music ignites the night with passionate fire
The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit
Zoom in as they burn the past to the ground
And feel the heat of the future's glow

How do you leave the past behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your heart?
It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out
'Til you're torn apart, rent

How can you connect in an age
Where strangers, landlords, lovers
Your own blood cells betray?

What binds the fabric together
When the raging, shifting winds of change
Keep ripping away

Draw a line in the sand and then make a stand
Use your camera to spar, use your guitar
When they act tough, you call they're bluff

We're not gonna pay, we're not gonna pay
We're not gonna pay, last year's rent
This year's rent, next year's rent

Rent, rent, rent, rent, rent
We're not gonna pay rent
'Cause everything is rent