Well, I was born into a family of four brothers,
But my mother and father never liked each other,
My mother always said that she was sick of it,
When I was eight years old, my father just split,
Never heard from him again until I was ten,
I got from down in Texas, in the state pen,
Everybody said, "Those boys won't get very far,"
I had to say, "But what would you know about here, where we are'"

And here we are, here we are,
Here we are, here we are, where we are,
And you know it's been a long way down, but I took the fall,
And I learned to climb before I could crawl,
With my R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and they never could take that from me.

I had to get out of the house when I was sixteen,
There was nothing there for me, if you know what I mean,
There was a deep shade of soul I could not relate to,
Just lie back, and let your my medicate you,
And life is sad, but it's beautiful,
I heard a voice from far away say, "Every word is true,"
That's why I try to give it all back to you.

Here we are, here we are,
Here we are, here we are, where we are,
And you know it's been a long way down when I took the fall,
And I learned to climb before I could crawl,
With my R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and you never could take that from me,
And here we are, here we are,
Here we are, here we are, where we are,
And you know it's been a long way down, but I took the fall,
And I learned to climb before I could crawl,
With my R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and you never could take that from me, no,
Well, here we go again,
You know I hated to pretend that life was beautiful; that love was good, and never went,
No, say it isn't so.

Well, I was born into a family of four brothers,
We learned to laugh, we learned to cry, to sing all night,
Still somehow rise with the sun,
And you know I never wanted to be the one to tell you everything would be alright,
And would you believe me if I did, or didn't turn around and come back to holy ground'
'Cause there ain't much life worth living when you grow up on this side of town,
And the wind was all I wanted, but we can't get that around here,
I won't stand here forever, weighed down by my fear,
Turn it around, turn it around, bring it back again,
And, oh yeah, say it isn't so, yeah: that I'm just like you,
You're just like...
Here we are, here we are,
Here we are, here we are, where we are,
And you know it's been a long way down when I took the fall,
And I learned to climb before I could crawl,
With my R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and you never could take that from me,
And here we are, here we are,
Here we are, here we are, where we are,
And you know it's been a long way down, but I took the fall,
And I learned to climb before I could crawl,
With my R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and you never could take that from me, no,
Here we go again,
You know I hated to pretend that life was beautiful; that love is good, and never ends,
No, say it isn't so.