I have seen the other side,

More than eight thousand miles away.

I have seen the other side,

And it's like nothing you've ever met before.

 

The streets are lined with ramshackle stores,

And houses the size of closets.

The "common people" live here,

They say.

This is a village,

But back home we'd call it

A slum.

 

The air is heavy with cigarette smoke,

And it fills my defective lungs.

Everywhere I go,

It just burns, burns, burns.

 

Yet in this place of the less fortunate,

I find a way to sing.

I forget about my fragile breath,

And I stand upon a stage,

And despite a choir around me,

For a moment,

I am alone.

I am alone with the people who know as little of our side as we do of theirs,

Yet with my voice,

I make them understand,

And myself understood.

 

I sing a song of passion,

Of hope,

And of devotion,

And though how many words they know,

I know not,

I can feel them understand.

 

And as the last note rings out and fades,

They stand up and cheer.

But they do not cheer for me.

They cheer for the emotion of my song,

And that alone shows,

Despite distance and language and culture,

There is something universal.