Homeboys

In the summertime on the street where i grew up
There were black guys and white boys and mexicans
And we'd love to make a football game, lightpost-to-lightpost
"here comes another car, get out of the way again"
We'd never miss a day, and hardly missed a night
Of talking about each other's sisters under the streetlight

Didn't care about the world
Didn't matter about nobody but the homeboys
The tiny and the strong
Everybody knew that they belonged with the homeboys

I used to walk to high school every day with jerry g.
We had sort of a connection i think
He taught me how to write on the wall
I taught him how to play chess
Some kind of strange urban link
We'd never missed a day of those twenty-minute talks
Till a fifteen-year-old drive-by shooter took him off our block

Hang your head and hide your eyes
Watch a thousand cars go by with homeboys
We learned of loss that day
Everybody knew that things had changed for the homeboys

Didn't care about the world
Didn't matter about nobody but the homeboys
The tiny and the strong
Everybody knows that they belong with the homeboys