My City

My City has a lot of faces
Some can be found in forgotten places
Comfortably sound with a lot of graces
The Sun could be down on his hungry town but in London he found him a shot at greatness
My City has a lot of faces

Some can tell you what a "loss of faith" is
Be-Fore we hated people we were all created equal then we
Learnt to despise the strife and
Forgot that variety's the spice of life – look around you

Constantly standing on the brink of history
Watching Newsreaders linking mysteries
Even though a few reporters taught us to be cautious 'cause they
Stink of this disease called inconsistency
See my city has a lot of faces

Four of them belonging to Big Ben
The rest of them hidden behind big business and Big Brother
Ensures all of them are monitored with them
Under social tensions you can see London languishes:
30% minorities, 300 languages
Differences – race and class, it's all enormous
But the common ground we found surpasses all the borders
If you meet a rich man, ass-kiss all his daughters...
Or his sons. We all live once
And who among us wouldn't want all of his funds?
That's rhetorical but I don't need call and response
To know that's how Londoners are from time to time
Only got the time to grind and whine

Technically I'm from an elegant city but I'm not the kind to wine and dine
I grew up around lots of crime, the violent kind
You might have heard about the rocks, the grime, the hype and shine
It's not just Cockney rhyming slang, we've got block-beef, violent gangs
Awkward interactions which most don't force
Children navigating through postcode wars
In estates with the least funding, look at the state of East London
That's a paradox:
Witness economy blooming for the have-a-lots:
Business is gonna be booming
But there's a difference between having a front row seat and watching from the sidelines

TFL knows the world is your Oyster as long as you can afford it
Even though you might need to re-mortgage just to get from Aldwych to Shoreditch
Inconvenient if you're poor, which
Could be expected in a tax system where the more rich get more rich
273 times the wealth of the poorest yet your door is next door to the extra poor
We look on the bright side but we're vexed for sure
Like all we have to ourselves is sex and war
And a lot of diversity, so what could I personally Hate a complexion for?
I see different coloured hands outstretched for more

Feel free to come to London and still see the London Dungeon
Experience a tube of mad claustrophobic's
Where food and bad posture don't mix
And join us in moving along to the groove of the song
What a sight to see, we could swap a nicety
Some of us feel you've forgotten my city
But hopefully you'll be proving us wrong
If you can take the rough with the smooth then it's on