[Intro]
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
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 lawman run down Flamingo
Chasing the Rat and the barefoot girl
And 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 jungleland
Well the midnight gangs a**embled
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 tops, rips this holy night,
The street's alive as secret debts are paid
Contact's 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
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 dancing 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
[Saxophone solo]
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 streets on fire in a real d**h waltz
Between what's flesh and what's fantasy
And 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 jungleland