I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles such are promises: All lies and jest still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. When I left my home and family I was no more than a boy in the company of strangers, in the quiet of a railway station running scared. Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters, where the ragged people go, looking for the places only they would know. Lie-la-lie ... Asking only workman's wages I came looking for a job, but I get no offers, just a comeon from the whores of Seventh Avenue I do declare there were times when I was so lonsome I took some comfort there... Lie-la-lie ... Then I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone, going home where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me, leading me, going home In the clearing stands the boxer and a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminders of ev'ry glove that laid him down and cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame: "I am leaving, I am leaving!" but the fighter still remains. Lie-la-lie