You were thrown into a tin can
And you learned how to beg and borrow
And you grew into a thin man

In the land of success, sin and sorrow
Now you're sleeping in a suitcase
With a pill bottle for a pillow

When you're hanging by a shoelace
It can get to be hard to swallow


When you're spinning on the subway
Naked lights sent in on the river
No you're never gonna leave her

Though you think someday that you might forgive her
Slipping into a slow dive
Cold black water makes you follow

Swimming into a spiral
Still you're singing


Shine, electric city, shine
In the cool of your emptiness
Around the curve of your spine

Come on and shine, electric city, shine
Like six thousand wings in the sky
Over the scene of the crime


When you come to an ending


Never reaching no conclusion
And you're sick of bending
In us and every fresh contusion

When you're lying in the soft arms
Of a silent ambulance that's speeding
And you're trying to tell the doctor that it's only a broken heart


You don't have to be a soldier to fight
But you'd better have a killer in you

You don't have to be a poet to die
It's the little things that kill you
Everybody gets a bad break

A little hit of pain and sorrow
Just forget about tomorrow
Keep on singing


Shine, electric city, shine
From the back of the cold beyond

Out to the end of the line
Come on and shine, electric city, shine
Like the sun in a hurricane's eye

Diamonds drowning in brine

Come on and shine

Shine
Shine
Shine