Ellis Paul Did I Ever Know You Lyrics

So you found yourself a corner apartment
With a view of the town all your own
All your friends say
The city's gonna kill you or cure you
Five flights of stairs to your home

And even now,
It's changed how you walk in the street
Past cabbies and chimney sweeps
Be careful with strangers you speak to

(chorus)
What has this city done to you?
Has it taken the small town out of you
And turned you into someone I never knew?

When we were kids
In the warmth of a porch light
You'd smuggle out twin cigarettes
We'd blow smoke in the air
With typical hometown flair
Two futures we could not predict

And look at you now,
The dreamer with the back porch plan
For the writer and the music man
Our faces on magazine stands (chorus)

What has this city done to you?
Has it taken the innocence out of you
And turned you into someone I never knew?
Did I ever know you?

Do you know how you light up these buildings?
You can turn the head of a man whose grown old
You're a candle when the streets grow cold

I can hear a cricket in your fifth floor apartment
It's 3 am
Back home he'd put me to sleep
But he's fighting to be heard
He can't get in a word
'cause there's a fool
Laughing outside in the street

Where are you now?
I lost you outside on montague street
To the city that never will sleep
Is it the sideshow in you
That it speaks to?

(chorus)

Hey did I ever know you?
Did I ever know you?