Cardboard Box City

Have you seen them in every station

Begging in their separate ways

Some of them are no more than children

Some of them are runaways

I don't care for your opinion

I've seen you turn your face the other way

And you said to me "Son, what's your problem?

Can't we talk about this over lunch some day?"

And I bet you've never

Been south of the river

Down the Old Kent Road or down

Southwark way

I bet you've never never seen them

Lying in the litter

In the cardboard boxes

Where you make them stay

In the docklands of East London

Where those great tall ships once sailed

Of a price of couple of hundred thousands

I have seen your condominiums for sale

In the north by the archway tavern

You can see them lying there every day

And they're drunk to hell, they'll scream their minds to the heaven

"My God why did it have to be this way?"

And I bet you've never

Been south of the river

Down the Old Kent Road or down

Southwark way

I bet you've never never seen them

Lying in the litter

In the cardboard boxes

Where you make them stay

I worked my time and I paid my taxes

I've lined your pockets with my pay

You said you'd take my money

You said you'd help them

But in your pockets it just seems to stay

And I've seen your fancy house in Richmond

And where you moor your boat on Kingston Quay

Every week you take your wife and children sailing

Try taking them down to south London some day

And I bet you've never

Been south of the river

Down the Old Kent Road or down

Southwark way

I bet you've never never seen them

Lying in the litter

In the cardboard boxes

Where you make them stay

In the cardboard boxes

where they have to stay