She inches along on the rim of the world
Always about to go over
How she can manage I never will know
To get from one day to the other
Scrounging a buck or a bed
Or the share of a roof for her head
This nobody's child, this precarious girl
Who lives on the rim of the world

She looks like a princess in somebody's rags
She dreams of a world without danger
Climbing the stairs to a room of her own
With someone who isn't a stranger
But now she eats what she can
And accepts what there is for a man
This nobody's child, this precarious girl
Who lives on the rim of the world

She inches along on the rim of the world
Always about to go over
How she can manage I never will know
To get from one day to the other
Scrounging a buck or a bed
Or the share of a roof for her head
This nobody's child, this precarious girl
Who lives on the rim of the world