Original Broadway Cast – Rent lyrics

Mark:
How do you document real life when real life's getting more like fiction each day? Head lines, bread lines blow my mind and now this dead line: Eviction or pay. Rent!

Roger:
How do you write a song when the chords sound wrong though they once sounded right and rare? When the notes are sour, where is the power you once had to ignite the air?

Mark:
And we're hungry and frozen.

Roger:
Some life that we've chosen.

Both:
How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay last year's rent?

Mark:(spoken)
We light candles.

Roger:
How do you start a fire when there's nothing to burn and it feels like somethings stuck in your flue?

Mark:
How can you generate heat when you can't feel your feet

Both:
And they're turning blue?

Mark:
You light up a mean blaze

Roger:
With posters

Mark:
And screenplays!

Both:
How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay last year's rent?

Joanne:
Don't scream, Maureen. It's me, Joanne, your substitute production manager. Hey hey hey! Did you eat? Don't change the subject Maureen. But darling, you haven't eaten all day. You wont throw up. You wont throw up. The digital delay didn't blow up exactly. There may have been one teeny, tiny spark. You're not calling Mark!

Collins:
How do you stay on your feet when on every street it trick-or-treat and tonight it's trick?! Welcome back to town. Oh, I should lie down. Everything's brown and uh-oh, I feel sick!

Mark:
Where is he?

Roger:
Gettin' dizzy!

Mark:
How we gonna pay?

Both:
How we gonna pay? How we gonna pay last year's rent?

Benny:
Allison, baby, you sound sad. I don't believe those two after everything I've done. Ever since our wedding I'm dirt. They'll see! I can help 'em all out in the long run.

Mark:
The music ignites the night with passionate fire!

Joanne:
Maureen, I'm not a theater person!

Mark:
The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit!

Joanne:
Could never be a theater person!

Mark:
Zoom in as they burn the past to the ground and feel the heat of the future's glow

Maureen:
Hello?

Mark:
Hello? Maureen? Your equipment won't work? Okay, alright! I'll go!

Mark and Half the Ensemble:
How do you leave the past behind when it keeps finding ways to get to your heart? It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out till you're torn apart--Rent!

Roger and Other Half of Ensemble:
How can you connect in an age where strangers, landlords, lovers, your own blood cells betray? What binds the fabric together when the raging, shifting winds of change keep ripping away?

Benny:
Draw a line in the sand and then make a stand.

Roger:
Use your camera to spar.

Mark:
Use your guitar.

All:
When they act tough you call their bluff.

Mark:
We're not gonna pay.

Mark&Roger:
We're not gonna pay.

All:
We're not gonna pay last year's rent, this year's rent, next year's rent! Rent, rent, rent, rent, rent! We're not gonna pay rent!

Mark and Roger:
'Cause everything is rent!