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, sitting on the hood of a Dodge Drinkin' 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 Lawman, run down Flamingo Chasin' the Rat and the barefoot girl And the kids round here just look 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 rendevous for the night They'll meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign That brings this fair city light Man there's an opera out on the turnpike There's a ballet bein' 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 vanished unseen Kids flash guitars just like switch blades Hustilin' for the record machine The Hungry and the Hunted Explode into rock an roll bands That face off against each other In the street Down in JungleLand In the parking lot the visionaries Dress in the latest rage Inside the backstreets girls are dancin' To the records that the DJ plays Lonely heart lovers, struggle in dark corners Desperate as the night moves on Just a look and a whisper And they're gone Beneath the city, two hearts beat Soul engines runnin' through the 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 waltz Between 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 the night They reach for their moment And try to make an honest stand But they wind up wounded Not even dead Tonight in JungleLand