Out There

The world is cruel

The world is wicked

It's I alone whom you can trust in this whole city

I am your only friend

I who keep you teach you feed you dress you

I who look upon you without fear

How can I protect you boy unless you

Always stay in here

Away in here

Remember what I taught you Quasimodo

You are deformed

I am deformed

And you are ugly

And I am ugly

And these are crimes

For which the world

Shows little pity

You do not comprehend

You are my one defender

Out there they'll revile you

As a monster

I am a monster

Out there they will hate

And scorn and jeer

Only a monster

Why invite their calumny

And consternation

Stay in here

Be faithful to me

I'm faithful

Grateful to me

Do as I say

Obey

And stay

In here

Safe behind these windows and these parapets of stone

Gazing at the people down below me

All my life I watch them as I hide up here alone

Hungry for the histories they show me

All my life I memorize their faces

Knowing them as they will never know me

All my life I wonder how it feels to pass a day

Not above them

But part of them

And out there

Living in the sun

Give me one day out there

All I ask is one

To hold forever

Out there

Where they all live unaware

What I'd give

What I'd dare

Just to live one day out there

Out there among the millers and the weavers and their wives

Through the roofs and gables I can see them

Ev'ry day they shout and scold and go about their lives

Heedless of the gift it is to be them

If I was in their skin

I'd treasure ev'ry instant

Out there

Strolling by the Seine

Taste a morning out there

Like ordinary men

Who freely walk about there

Just one day and then

I swear I'll be content

With my share

Won't resent

Won't despair

Old and bent

I won't care

I'll have spent

One day

Out there