Gates of the West

Album: The Cost of Living (1979)
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  • I would love to be the lucky one on chill
    Avenue
    Who could keep your heart warm when ice has turned it blue
    But with the beggin' sleeping losers as they turn in for the night
    I'm looking back for home and I can see the lights

    I should be jumpin' shoutin' that I made it all this way
    From Camden Town station to Fortieth and Eighth
    Not many make it this far and many say we're great
    But just like them we walk on an' we can't escape our fate
    Can't you hear the sighing
    Eastside Jimmy and Southside Sue
    Both say they needed something new

    So I'm standing at the gates of the west
    I burn money at the lights of the sign
    The city casts a shadow of the perfect crime
    I'm standing at the gates of the east
    I take my pulse and the pulse of my friend
    The city casts a shadow, will I see you again?

    The immigrants an' remnants of all the glory years
    Are clustered around the bar again for another round of beers
    Little Richard's in the kitchen playing spoons and plates
    He's telling the waitress he's great

    Ah say I know somewhere back'n'forth in time
    Out on the dustbowls, deep in the roulette mine
    Or in a ghetto cellar only yesterday
    There's a move into the future for the USA.

    I hear them crying
    Eastside Jimmy and Southside Sue
    Both said they needed something new

    Standing at the gates of the west
    In the shadow again
    I'm standing at the gates of the west
    In the shadow again Writer/s: JOE STRUMMER, MICK JONES, PAUL SIMONON, TOPPER HEADON
    Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

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