Original Off-Broadway Cast and Anthony Rapp - Rent

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

And 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

We light candles

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

Don't screen, Maureen
It's me Joanne
Your substitute production manager
Hey hey hey! Did you eat?
Don't change the subject Maureen
But darling! You haven't eaten all day

You won't throw up
You won't throw up
The digital delay
Didn't blow up, exactly
There may have been one teeny tiny spark
You're not calling Mark!

How do you stay on your feet
When on every street
It's 'trick or treat'
And tonight its '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

Allison, baby you sound sad
I don't believe those two
After everything I've done

Ever since our wedding
I'm dirt, they'll see
I can help them all out in the long run

"The music ignites the night with
Passionate fire"

Maureen, I'm not a theatre person

The narration crackles and pops with
Incendiary wit

Could never be a theatre person

Zoom in as they burn the past to the ground

And feel the heat of the future's glow

(Hello?) Hello? Maureen?
Your equipment won't work?
Okay, all right, I'll go!

How do you leave the past behind
When it keep 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 the stand

Use your camera to spar

Use your guitar

When they act tough
You call their 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

Written by:
Jonathan D. Larson

Publisher:
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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