Thunder Road

The screen door slams

Mary's dress waves

Like a vision she dances across the porch

As the radio plays

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely

Hey that's me and I want you only

Don't turn me home again

I just can't face myself alone again

Don't run back inside

darling you know just what I'm here for

So you're scared and you're thinking

That maybe we ain't that young anymore

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night

You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright

Oh and that's alright with me

You can hide `neath your covers

And study your pain

Make crosses from your lovers

Throw roses in the rain

Waste your summer praying in vain

For a savior to rise from these streets

Well now I'm no hero

That's understood

All the redemption I can offer, girl

Is beneath this dirty hood

With a chance to make it good somehow

Hey what else can we do now

Except roll down the window

And let the wind blow back your hair

Well the night's busting open

These two lanes will take us anywhere

We got one last chance to make it real

To trade in these wings on some wheels

Climb in back

Heaven's waiting on down the tracks

Oh oh come take my hand

Riding out tonight to case the promised land

Oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road

Lying out there like a killer in the sun

Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run

Oh Thunder Road, sit tight take hold

Thunder Road

Well I got this guitar

And I learned how to make it talk

And my car's out back

If you're ready to take that long walk

From your front porch to my front seat

The door's open but the ride it ain't free

And I know you're lonely

For words that I ain't spoken

But tonight we'll be free

All the promises'll be broken

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away

They haunt this dusty beach road

In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets

They scream your name at night in the street

Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet

And in the lonely cool before dawn

You hear their engines roaring on

But when you get to the porch they're gone

On the wind, so Mary climb in

It's a town full of losers

And I'm pulling out of here to win.

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

Tear drops on the city

Bad Scooter searching for his groove

Seem like the whole world walking pretty

And you can't find the room to move

Well everybody better move over, that's all

I'm running on the bad side

And I got my back to the wall

Tenth Avenue freeze-out, Tenth Avenue freeze-out

I'm stranded in the jungle

Taking all the heat they was giving

The night is dark but the sidewalk's bright

And lined with the light of the living

From a tenement window a transistor blasts

Turn around the corner things got real quiet real fast

She hit me with a Tenth Avenue freeze-out

Tenth Avenue freeze-out

And I'm all alone, I'm all alone

And kid you better get the picture

And I'm on my own, I'm on my own

And I can't go home

When the change was made uptown

And the Big Man joined the band

From the coastline to the city

All the little pretties raise their hands

I'm gonna sit back right easy and laugh

When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half

With a Tenth Avenue freeze-out, Tenth Avenue freeze-out

Tenth Avenue freeze-out...

Night

You get up every morning at the sound of the bell

You get to work late and the boss man's giving you hell

Till you're out on a midnight run

Losing your heart to a beautiful one

And it feels right as you lock up the house

Turn out the lights and step out into the night

And the world is busting at its seams

And you're just a prisoner of your dreams

Holding on for your life `cause you work all day

To blow `em away in the night

The rat traps filled with soul crusaders

The circuits lined and jammed with chromed invaders

And she's so pretty that you're lost in the stars

As you jockey your way through the cars

And sit at the light, as it changes to green

With your faith in your machine off you scream into the night

And you're in love with all the wonder it brings

And every muscle in your body sings as the highway ignites

You work nine to five and somehow you survive till the night

Hell all day they're busting you up on the outside

But tonight you're gonna break on through to the inside

And it'll be right, it'll be right, and it'll be tonight

And you know she will be waiting there

And you'll find her somehow you swear

Somewhere tonight you run sad and free

Until all you can see is the night

Backstreets

One soft infested summer me and Terry became friends

Trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in

Catching rides to the outskirts tying faith between our teeth

Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house getting wasted in the heat

And hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets

With a love so hard and filled with defeat

Running for our lives at night on them backstreets

Slow dancing in the dark on the beach at Stockton's Wing

Where desperate lovers park we sat with the last of the Duke Street Kings

Huddled in our cars waiting for the bells that ring

In the deep heart of the night to set us loose from everything

to go running on the backstreets, running on the backstreets

We swore we'd live forever on the backstreets we take it together

Endless juke joints and Valentino drag where dancers scraped the tears (1)(2)

Up off the street dressed down in rags running into the darkness

Some hurt bad some really dying at night sometimes it seemed

You could hear the whole damn city crying blame it on the lies that killed us

Blame it on the truth that ran us down you can blame it all on me Terry

It don't matter to me now when the breakdown hit at midnight

There was nothing left to say but I hated him and I hated you when you went away

Laying here in the dark you're like an angel on my chest

Just another tramp of hearts crying tears of faithlessness

Remember all the movies, Terry, we'd go see

Trying to learn how to walk like heroes we thought we had to be

And after all this time to find we're just like all the rest

Stranded in the park and forced to confess

To hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets

We swore forever friends on the backstreets until the end

Hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets

Born To Run

In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream

At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines

Sprung from cages out on Highway 9

Chrome wheeled, fuel injected

And steppin' out over the line

Baby this town rips the bones from your back

It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap

We gotta get out while we're young

'Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

Wendy, let me in, I wanna be your friend

I want to guard your dreams and visions

Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims

And strap your hands across my engines

Together we could break this trap

We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back

Will you walk with me out on the wire

'Cause baby I'm just a scared and lonely rider

But I gotta know how it feels

I want to know if your love is wild

Girl I want to know if love is real

Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard

The girl comb their hair in rear-view mirrors

And the boys try to look so hard

The amusement park rises bold and stark

Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist

I wanna die with you out on the streets tonight

In an everlasting kiss

The highways jammed with broken heroes

On a last chance power drive

Everybody's out on the run tonight

But there's no place left to hide

Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness

I'll love you with all the madness in my soul

Someday girl, I don't know when, we're gonna get to that place

Where we really want to go

And we'll walk in the sun

But till then tramps like us

Baby we were born to run

She's The One

With her killer graces and her secret places

That no boy can fill with her hands on her hips

Oh and that smile on her lips

Because she knows that it kills me

With her soft french cream

Standing in that doorway like a dream

I wish she'd just leave me alone

Because french cream won't soften them boots

And french kisses will not break that heart of stone

With her long hair falling

And her eyes that shine like a midnight sun

Oh-o she's the one, she's the one

That Thunder in your heart

At night when you're kneeling in the dark

It says you're never gonna leave her

But there's this angel in her eyes

That tells such desperate lies

And all you want to do is believe her

And tonight you'll try just one more time

To leave it all behind and to break on through

Oh she can take you, but if she wants to break you

She's gonna find out that ain't so easy to do

And no matter where you sleep tonight or how far you run

Oh-o she's the one, she's the one

Oh-o and just one kiss

She'd fill them long summer nights

With her tenderness that secret pact you made

Back when her love could save you from the bitterness

Oh she's the one, oh she's the one

Oh she's the one, oh she's the one

Oh she's the one, oh she's the one

Meeting Across The River

Hey, Eddie, can you lend me a few bucks

And tonight can you get us a ride

Gotta make it through the tunnel

Got a meeting with a man on the other side

Hey Eddie, this guy, he's the real thing

So if you want to come along

You gotta promise you won't say anything

`Cause this guy don't dance

And the word's been passed this is our last chance

We gotta stay cool tonight, Eddie

`Cause man, we got ourselves out on that line

And if we blow this one

They ain't gonna be looking for just me this time

And all we gotta do is hold up our end

Here stuff this in your pocket

It'll look like you're carrying a friend

And remember, just don't smile

Change your shirt, `cause tonight we got style

Well Cherry says she's gonna walk

`Cause she found out I took her radio and hocked it

But Eddie, man, she don't understand

That two grand's practically sitting here in my pocket

And tonight's gonna be everything that I said

And when I walk through that door

I'm just gonna throw that money on the bed

She'll see this time I wasn't just talking

Then I'm gonna go out walking

Hey Eddie, can you catch us a ride?

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

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

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

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 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 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 D.J. plays

Lonely-hearted 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 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 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 Jungle land