I've never lived here but I've always been here
like the guy in the black and white picture
at the end of the movie it turned out he'd been there
his whole life but he'd never lived there

except for the once and it didn't work out right
He died outside, had a fight with his wife
and he ran all around in the maze of the mind
of the ghost of the love that was trapped in his heart

And speaking of love there's a heart on my sleeve
not the sleeve but the front of this white t-shirt
not a shirt but a mug not a mug but a glove
not a glove but a No. 2 pencil

When it's sharp and I hold it straight up on the desk
it's a relative I know from pictures
But a picture's enough to rekindle the love
Like a sister you see just at Christmas

And the people who aren't from here wish that they were
And the people who are know they're smarter
than the people who dream of New York cuz they know
that the grass isn't greener it's harder

And it grows to incredible heights and it turns
into metal and glass and burnt coffee
And the light from the sun is that guy from the maze
with the axe trying to hack through the city

They thought that they knew us
Well how could they know us?
They read in the shape of a cloud we'd been bad
So they blew into town and they took souvenirs
from a place that I had never seen though I had

But instead of a snow globe they took the whole thing
leaving only the snow and a hole in the globe
By the time that I got there I got there too late
to do anything
even say that I'd been there.

I love New York
I love New York
I love New York
It's written on my shirt.