Common - Love is...

[Chorus:]
How beautiful love can be!
On the streets love is hard to see,
It's a place I got to be,
Loving you is loving me.
How beautiful love can be!
On the streets love is hard to see,
Gotta reach that frequency,
Loving you is loving me.

[Verse 1:]
Yeah, you know what love is,
Even found it on the ground where the thugs live,
My man had to dig deep to find his,
Couldn't sleep ‘cause on the real he had five kids.
Live nigs, real niggas express and taste it,
At crap games, black dames and big faces,
Cases in court, fam' showin' love and support,
You and your baby's mom thought that love was a sport.
As men we were taught to hold it in,
That's why we don't know how till we're older men,
If love is a place I'ma go again,
At least now, now I know to go within.
At times it can take ya for a spin,
Heartbreak hotel, then you're home again,
I've seen love make a nigga soul pretend
Like a story that he don't want to end, yo!

[Chorus:]
How beautiful love can be!
On the streets love is hard to see,
It's a place I got to be,
Loving you is loving me.
How beautiful love can be!
On the streets love is hard to see,
Gotta reach that frequency,
Loving you is loving me.

[Verse 2:]
It's all love where we come from,
In the hood love we was told to run from,
That same hood where the guns sung,
We holla love, hopin' it'd become one.
Crack got so many lives undone,
From lack of love many hide, some run,
I knew this girl with a son, who dreamt of acting in plays,
Demonstration with her man had her trapped in a maze,
Tryna find herself again, much of that she'd have gave.
Love can free us, to it some of us react as a slave,
Funny, we love 'em more when they're relaxed in a grave,
Wonder if a thug is raw, is he actin' afraid?
Everybody loves sun, why do I attract shade?
Heard of the love of money, but compassion it pays,
Talk about it with my youth so she'd understand
What it is to be loved by a man.

[Chorus:]
How beautiful love can be!
On the streets love is hard to see,
It's a place I got to be,
Loving you is loving me.
How beautiful love can be!
On the streets love is hard to see,
Gotta reach that frequency,
Loving you is loving me.

[Verse 3:]
Some say that I'm a dreamer ‘cause I talk about it often,
Seen the hardest nigga soften wit' his homie in a coffin,
We walk and stand in, fall in it,
With the right companion we all in it.
Mary sang a song about it havin' broad limits,
In the game of life it's the scrimmage,
Reminiscin' on letters I wrote in my small days,
A letter to the people, love always, yeah!

[Chorus:]
How beautiful love can be!
On the streets love is hard to see,
It's a place I got to be,
Loving you is loving me.
How beautiful love can be!
On the streets love is hard to see,
Gotta reach that frequency,
Loving you is loving me.