Born To Run

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

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 jungleland

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 find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl i want to know if love is real

Beyond the palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview 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 wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss

The highway's 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'll 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

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
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

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?