Jungleland Lyrics

The rangers had a homecoming in Harlem, late last night And the magic rat drove his sleek machine, over Jersey state line Barefoot girl, sitting on the hood of a Dodge Drinking warm beer in 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 Chasing the rat and the barefoot girl The kids round here look just like shadows Always quiet, holding hands From the churches to the jails Tonight all is silence in the world As we take our stand Down in jungle land
The midnight gang's assembled And picked a rendezvous 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 being fought out in the alley Until the local cops, cherry top, 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 Hustling for the record machine
The hungry and the hunted Explode into rock 'n' roll bands Their faced off against each other out in the street Down in jungle land
In the parking lot, the visionaries Dressed in the latest rage Inside the backstreet girls are dancing To the records that the D.J. plays Lonely hearted lovers struggle in dark corners Desperate as the night moves on And just one look and a whisper, they're gone
Beneath the city, two hearts beat Soul engines running 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 when 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 what's flesh and what's fantasy And then the poets down here, don't write nothing 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 jungle land