Bruce Springsteen - Jungleland

The Rangers had a homecoming In Harlem late last night And the Magic Rat drove his sleek machine Over the Jersey State line Barefoot girl sittin' on the hood of a Dodge Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain The Rat pulls into town rolls up his pants Together they take a stab at romance And disappear down Flamingo Lane Well the Maximum Lawmen run down Flamingo Chasing the Rat and the Barefoot Girl And the kids round here look just like shadows Always quiet, holdin' hands From the churches to the jails Tonight all is silence in the world As we take our stand Down in Jungleland The midnight gang's assembled And picked a renedzvous for the night They'll meet me 'neath that giant Exxon sigh That brings this fair city light Man there's an opera out on the Turnpike There's a ballet being fought out in the alley Until the local cops Cherry tops Rips this holy night The street's alive As secret debts are paid Contacts made, they vanish unseen Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades Hustlin' for the record machine The hungry and the hunted Explode into rock'n'roll bands That face off against each other out in the street Down in Jungleland In the parking lot the visionaries Dress in the latest rage Inside the backstreet girls are dancin' To the records that the DJ plays Lonely-hearted lovers Struggle in dark corners Desperate as the night moves on Just one look And a whisper, and they're gone Beneath the city two hearts beat Soul engines runnin' through a night so tender In a bedroom locked In whispers of soft refusal And then surrender In the tunnels uptown The Rat's own dream guns him down As shots echo down them hallways in the night No one watches as the ambulance pulls away Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light Outside the street's on fire In a real death watlz Between what's flesh and what's fantasy And the poets down here Don't write nothin' at all They just stand back and let it all be And in the quick of a knife They reach for their moment And try to make an honest stand But they wind up wounded And not even dead Tonight in Jungleland