Jungleland

a 10 minute long song by Bruce Springsteen from Born To Run (1974) one of the most epic songs ever written, up there with Lost In The Flood. the album version is great, but the NYC version is just insanely awesome. Its about love, violence, drugs, street racing, and the New York ghetto. A truly epic song. "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 gangs assembled and picked a rendezvous for the night Theyll meet `neath that giant exxon sign that brings this fair city light Man theres an opera out on the turnpike Theres a ballet being fought out in the alley Until the local cops, cherry tops, rips this holy night The streets 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 rocknroll 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 theyre 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 rats 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 death waltz Between flesh and whats fantasy and the poets down here Dont 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"