I don't know which way, the ball just bounces,
And I don't know, maybe the cards just fall,
Or maybe there's some ancient chain of causes and effects,
Got one man walking proud while another man crawls.

There's a guy sleeping out on the sidewalk in November,
Newspaper pillow, rag for a coat, tangle of filthy hair,
Imagine the story that probably goes with this picture,
Imagine the forces that picked him up somewhere in life and then threw him down there.

He was somebody's friend, maybe somebody's lover,
He was somebody's bouncing baby boy,
He might even still have a father and mother,
That could have been me,
That could have been you,
It should have been fiction, turns out to be true,
Turns out to be true.

There's another kind of guy living up on the top of this city,
View of the mountains, view of the ocean, view of the losers below,
He probably didn't wind up living there accidentally,
He got all the right breaks, he caught all the right waves,
Figured out which way the wind here blows.

And he thinks about power,
And he thinks about fabulous wealth,
When he thinks about people at all, they're only important in terms of himself,
Man, that could have been me,
That could have been you,
It should have been fiction, turns out to be true,
That could have been me,
That could have been you,
I wish it would have been fiction instead of the truth,
Turns out to be true.