Lost In the Flood - Live at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK - November 1975

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

With a spastic's reelin' perfection

Nuns run bald through Vatican halls

Pregnant, 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

Oh, that cat from the Bronx starts lettin' loose

But he gets blown right off his feet

Oh, 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 someone 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 all just lost in the flood?