I met a girl that lived in Blue Hills She said her name was Beverly She had a smile that'd make a man's heart melt One gold tooth she could not hide from me I said girl it breaks my heart to wonder Why you walk these streets alone Why you sell your body in the shadows There's just one thing I need to know Where do you hide your heart and soul She said This life, it was too short to give up She told me This life, it was too short to give up Too short to give up Away at school he would read her letters How he was his momma's pride and joy But like the fate of many others The virus took his mother And a father's drunken silence leaves a lost and wayward boy Free souls that for all the best intentions Are just another sad tale this cruel world will tell Where the best intentions are good for nothing more Than to pave a road to hell Still they hears a voice Like a faint and distant bell Saying This life, it was too short to give up She told him This life, it was too short to give up Too short, too short This life, too short, too short This life, is just too short to give up Too short, too short Too short Tattooed arms Clutching a weathered Bible From a prison cell they put him on the street To spread his message of revival To every lost and lonely soul Every broken heart he meets On every crowded street corner In the gutters of defeat He tells them This life, it was too short to give up He told them This life, it was too short to give up There is a light that shines for us And one everlasting love that lifts us up This life, it was too short to give up It was too short, was too short Too short Too short to give up Too short, too short Too short, too short Too short, too short Too short, too short Too short, too short