The ragamuffin gunner is returnin' home
Like a hungry runaway
He walks through town all alone
He must be from the fort
He hears the high school girls say
His countryside's burnin' with wolfman fairies
Dressed in drag for homicide
The hit and run, plead sanctuary,
'neath a holy stone they hide
They're breakin' beams and crosses
Wth a spastic's reelin' perfection
Nuns run bald through Vatican halls
Pegnant, pleadin' immaculate conception
And everybody's wrecked on Main Street
From drinking unholy blood
Sticker smiles sweet as gunner breathes deep,
His ankles caked in mud
And I said, “Hey, gunner man, that's quicksand,
That's quicksand that ain't mud
Have you thrown your senses to the war
Or did you lose them in the flood?”
That pure American brother,
Dull-eyed and empty-faced
Races Sundays in Jersey
In a Chevy stock super eight
He rides 'er low on the hip,
On the side he's got Bound For Glory in red,
White and blue flash paint
He leans on the hood telling racing stories,
The kids call him Jimmy The Saint
Well that blaze and noise boy,
He's gunnin' that bitch loaded to blastin' point
He rides head first into a hurricane
And disappears into a point
And there's nothin' left
But some blood where the body fell
That is, nothin' left that you could sell
Just junk all across the horizon,
A real highwayman's farewell
And I said, “Hey kid, you think that's oil?
Man, that ain't oil that's blood.”
I wonder what he was thinking
When he hit that storm
Or was he just lost in the flood?
Eighth Avenue sailors in satin shirts
Whisper in the air
Some storefront incarnation of Maria,
She's puttin' on me the stare
And Bronx's best apostle stands
With his hand on his own hardware
Everything stops, you hear five, quick shots,
The cops come up for air
And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown,
They're shootin' up the street
And that cat from the Bronx starts lettin' loose
But gets blown right off his feet
And some kid comes blastin' round the corner
But a cop puts him right away
He lays on the street holding his leg
Screaming something in Spanish
Still breathing when I walked away
And somebody said, “Hey man did you see that?
His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud.”
I wonder what the dude was sayin'
Or was he just lost in the flood?
Hey man, did you see that,
Those poor cats are sure messed up
I wonder what they were gettin' into,
Or were they just lost in the flood?