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We Built This City Lyrics

Artist: Starship

Chorus:
We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

Say you don't know me, or recognize my face
Say you don't care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night

Ma Coley plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

chorus

Someone's always playing corporation games
Who cares they're always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible, write us off the page

Ma Coley plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

chorus

It's just another Sunday, in a tired old street
Well if you got the toco, oh, then we just lost the beat

Who counts the money underneath the bar
Who writes the wrecking ball in two wild guitars
Don't tell us you need us, 'cause we're just simple fools
Looking for America, coming through your schools

(I'm looking out over that Golden Gate bridge
Out on a gorgeous sunny Saturday, I've seen that low amount of traffic)

Don't you remember (remember)

(Here's your favorite radio station, in your favorite radio city
The city by the bay, the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps)

Ma Coley plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock an' roll

chorus repeats 2x

(We built, we built this city) built this city (we built, we built this city)
(repeats out)

Comments/Interpretations

by eGad! on 5/30/2008 1:16am
No wonder I feel suicidal after hearing this song!
by flirtyred on 6/6/2008 4:42pm
another oldie and definately goodie
by jslkwilham on 7/22/2008 7:52am
it's not Ma Coley - it's Marconi -If you're gonna make fun at least get the words right!
by godfrey kirxton -lesotho (africa) on 1/14/2009 4:31pm
reminds me of my childhood. i can't think of a more memorable song - all the staying up late, watching old movies and videos. i admire it to death. my kids will sure have this record.
by graces on 1/16/2009 8:40am
I agree it's Marconi
by DrUsual on 2/13/2009 9:24am
Not only is it "Marconi" instead of "Ma Coley," it's also "number" instead of "mamba," and the radio DJ clearly says "bumper to bumper traffic," not "low amount of traffic." What else...it's "two rock guitars," not "two wild guitars," and it should be "ship of fools," not "simple fools."

But congratulations -- you got the title of the song correct. Bang up job.
by johnnycee on 9/23/2009 6:49pm
It actually is "mamba", although it doesn't help make any more sense of the lyrics. I thought it was "who rides the wrecking ball into OUR guitars, but I may be wrong. I guess Bernie Taupin wrote these "lyrics", which makes plenty of sense. I put this song in the category of lots of fun to listen to, but don't look for any deeper meaning,like most Elton John songs.
by Reed Parker on 9/28/2009 8:32am
wow, lol
by The Truth Fairy on 4/19/2010 2:02am
Ok, so, several people have now provided the CORRECT lyrics to this song ["Marconi" vs "Ma Coley", "ship of fools" not "simple fools", etc] and yet this page is full of incorrect crap!

Wtf?!? Why even have a comments section, if you're not gonna correct the mistakes caused by the shithead submitter?
by Kevin on 7/26/2010 1:52pm
Well if you got the toco, oh, then we just lost the beat

Should be:

Police have got the choke hold, then we just lost the beat.
Translation: The cops are shutting it down.

Who rides the wreckling ball:
Translation. People breaking up their music/fun/expression, ie, coming in and wrecking it all.

The radio "overplay" is "not seeing that bumper to bumper traffic", not "I've seen that low amount of traffic".
by seeatco on 12/28/2010 1:55am
Horrendously inaccurate.
by Courtney Lynn Jones on 9/6/2011 10:57pm
nice cause we are doing this song for PLAYBACK YAY YAY YAY
by ucanliv4ever on 3/7/2012 3:15pm
should be "say you don't care TO GO, to that kind of place.

Tesla had actually discovered the radio but a man named Marconi tried to steal the credit. The first radios were called marconis.
They point this out in the song in an attempt to establish a legal claim to their name "Jefferson Airplane" . A man named Matthew Katz owns the name and also owns the rights to Moby Grape, or at least he used to. This is why Airplane changed their name to Jefferson Starship and then later to just "starship" (corporations changing corporation names).
by Some History on 8/19/2012 9:50am
On the Marconi thing, as a matter of fact, the first person to actually transmit voice over radio was a Brazilian Priest named Roberto Landell de Moura. He did that 12 years before Marconi transmitted simple radio signals across the Atlantic.








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