People’s Faces (Streatham version)

It's coming to pass
My county's coming apart
The whole thing's becoming
Such a bumbling farce

Was that a pivotal historical moment
We just went stumbling past?
Well, here we are
Dancing in the rumbling dark

So come a little closer
Give me something to grasp
Give me your beautiful crumbling heart

Another disaster, catharsis
Another half-discarded mirage
Another mask slips
I face off with the physical
My head's ringing from the love of the stars

There is too much pretence here
Too much depends on the fragile wages
And the extortionate rents here

We're working every dread day that is given us
Feeling like the person we could be
It really isn't us
Like we're going to buckle underneath the trouble
Like any minute now
Our struggles are going to finish us

And then we smile at all our friends

It's hard
We got our heads down and our hackles up
Our back's against the wall
I can feel you aching

None of this was written in stone
There is nothing we're forbidden to know
And I can feel things changing
Even when I'm weak and I'm breaking
I stand weeping at the train station
'Cause I can see your faces

There is so much peace to be found in people's faces

I saw it roaring
I felt it clawing at my clothes like a grieving friend
It said there are no new beginnings
Until everybody sees
That the old ways need to end

But it's hard to accept that we are all one and the same flesh
Given the rampant divisions between oppressor, complicit and oppressed
But we are though

More empathy
Less greed
And more respect
All I've got to say has already been said

You heard it from yourself
When you were lying in your bed and you couldn't sleep
Thinking, couldn't we be doing things differently?

I'm listening to every little whisper in the distance singing hymns
And I can
I can feel things
Changing

It's hard
We got our heads down and our hackles up
Our back's against the wall
I can feel your heart racing

None of this was written in stone
The currents fast but the river moves slow
And I can feel things changing

Even when I'm weak and I'm breaking
I stand weeping at the train station
'Cause I can see your faces
There is so much peace to be found in people's faces

I love people's faces