[Verse 1]
If you take a train with me
Uptown to the misery
Of ghetto streets in morning light
Ooh, they're always night
Take a window seat, put down your Times
You can read between the lines
Just meet the faces that you meet
Beyond the window's pane

[Chorus]
And it might begin to teach you
How to give a damn about your fellow man
And it might begin to teach you
How to give a damn about your fellow man

[Verse 2]
Where would you go to sleep sometimes
With rats instead of nursery rhymes?
With a hunger and your other children by her side
And you wonder if you'll share your bed
With something else that must be fed
For fear may lay beside you
Or, at most, sleep down the hall

[Chorus]
And it might begin to teach you
How to give a damn about your fellow man
And it might begin to teach you
How to give a damn about your fellow man
[Bridge]
Come and see how well despair is seasoned by the stifling air
See our ghetto in the good old sizzling summertime
Suppose the streets were all on fire
The flames, like tempers, leaping high
Suppose you lived there all your life
Do you think that you would mind?

[Chorus]
And it might begin to reach you
How we give a damn about our fellow man
And it might begin to teach you
How to give a damn about your fellow man

[Outro]
And I might have got to reach you
Oh, don't give a damn, hmm
Hmm, hmm, hmm
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm
Hmm, hmm, hmm
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm