Jungleland - Live at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY - 09/21/79

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
Rat pulls up his pants
Together they take a stab at romance and disappear down Flamingo Lane

The Maximum Lawman run down Flamingo
Chasing the Rat and the barefoot girl
The kids 'round there look just like shadows
Always silent, holdin' hands
From the churches to the jails
Tonight all is silent in the world (ah)

As we take our stand, say it now!
(Down in Jungleland)

The midnight gang's assembled and picked a rendezvous for the night
We're gonna meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light
There's an opera out on the Turnpike
There's a ballet being fought out in the alley
As the local cops, Cherry Top
Rip this holy night

The street's alive, secret debts are paid
Contacts made, they vanished unseen
Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades
Hustle for the record machine

The hungry and the hunted
Explode into rock and roll bands
They 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 the DJ plays
Lonely-hearted lovers struggle in dark corners
Desperate as the night moves on
In 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
Nobody's watching when the ambulance pulls away
Or when the girl shuts out at bedroom light

Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz
Between what's flesh and what's fantasy
And, man, the poets down here don't write nothin' at all
They just stand back and let it all be

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