Out There

The world is cruel
 The world is wicked
 It's I alone who 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 (I'm grateful)
 Do as I say, obey, and stay in here (I'll 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
 Every 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 every 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...