So how can you tell me you're lonely
And say to me that the sun don't shine
Let me take you by the hand
and lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something
To make you change your mind.

Have you seen the old girl
Who walks the streets of London
Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags
She's no time for talking,
She just keeps right on walking,
Carrying her home in two carrier bags

So how can you tell me you're lonely...

In the old night cafe at a quarter past eleven
The same old man sitting there on his own
Looking at the world over the rim of his teacup
Each tea lasts an hour, then he wanders home alone

So how can you tell me you're lonely...

Have you seen the old man
outside the seaman's mission
Memory fading with the minor ribands that he wears
In our city winter the rain cries little pity
For one more forgotten hero
and a world which doesn't care

So how can you tell me you're lonely...

Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me,
oh yesterday came suddenly

Why she had to go, I don't know,
she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong,
now I long for yesterday

Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I lead a place to hide away
Oh I believe in yesterday

When I left my home and my 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

Lai la lai, Lai la lai lai lai la lai,
Lai la lai, Lai la lai lai lai lai lai, la la la la lai

Asking only workmens wages I come looking for a job,
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on seventh avenue,
I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there
Lai la lai
Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
and wishing I was gone
Where the New York city aren't bleeding me,
Leading me, going home.

In the clearing stands a boxer
and a fighter by his trade
and he carries the reminders
of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out,
In his anger and his pain,
`I am leaving, I am leaving',
but the fighter still remains,

Lai la lai...