The Fire Inside

There's a hard moon rising on the streets tonight There's a reckless feeling in your heart as you head out tonight Through the concrete canyons to the midtown lights Where the latest neon promises are burning bright Past the open windows on the darker streets Where unseen angry voices flash and children cry Past the phony posers with their worn out lines The tired new money dressed to the nines The low life dealers with their bad designs And the dilettantes with their open minds You're out on the town, safe in the crowd Ready to go for the ride Searching the eyes, looking for clues There's nowhere you can hide The fire inside Well, you've been to the clubs and the discotheques Where they deal one another from the bottom of a deck of promises Where the cautious loners and emotional wrecks Do an acting stretch as a way to hide the obvious And the lights go down and they dance real close And for one brief instant they pretend they're safe and warm Then the beat gets louder and the mood is gone The darkness scatters as the lights flash on They hold one another just a little too long And they move apart and then move on On to the street, on to the next Safe in the knowledge that they tried Faking the smile, hiding the pain Never satisfied The fire inside The fire inside Now, the hour is late and he thinks you're asleep You listen to him dress and you listen to him leave Like you knew he would You hear his car pull away in the street Then you move to the door and you lock it When he's gone for good Then you walk to the window and stare at the moon Riding high and lonesome through a starlit sky And it comes to you how it all slips away Youth and beauty are gone one day No matter what you dream or feel or say It ends in dust and disarray Like wind on the plains, sand through the glass Waves rolling in with the tide Dreams die hard and we watch them erode But we cannot be denied The fire inside Fire inside Oh, the fire inside Burning you up Burning you up Fire inside