&. — 𝐁𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧'𝐬 [𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟐] 𝑁𝑒𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑘𝑎 𝐚𝐥𝐛𝐮𝐦 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬 & 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.
( tweak as you see fit / require (name/location changes, etc.)! )
I saw her standin' on her front lawn.
Me and her went for a ride, sir. And ten innocent people died.
From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska. With a sawed-off .410 in my lap.
I killed everything in my path.
I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done.
At least for a little while, sir, me and her...we had us some fun.
The jury brought in a guilty verdict.
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin' right there on my lap.
They declared me unfit to live.
They want to know why I did what I did. Sir, I guess there's just meanness in this world.
Down on the boardwalk, they're getting ready for a fight.
Now, there's troubling bussing in from out-of-state. And the DA can't get no relief.
The gambling commission's hanging on by the skin of its teeth.
Well, now, everything dies, baby. That's a fact.
Maybe everything that dies someday comes back.
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty.
Meet me tonight, in Atlantic City.
I got debts that no honest man can pay.
I drew what I had from the Central Trust. And I bought us two tickets on that Coast City bus.
We're going out where the sand's turning gold.
Put on your stockings, baby, 'cause the night's getting cold.
Well, I'm tired of coming out on this losing end.
So, honey, last night I met this guy, and I'm gonna do a little favor for him.
Put your hair up nice, fix yourself up pretty.
There's a place out on the edge of town, sir, rising above the factories and the fields.
Ever since I was a child, I can remember that mansion on the hill.
At night, my daddy'd take me, and we'd ride through the streets of a town so silent and still.
Park on a back road along the highway side.
In the summer, all the lights would shine. There'd be music playin', people laughin' all the time.
Me and my sister, we'd hide out in the tall cornfields.
I watch the cars rushin' by home from the mill.
Well, they closed down the auto plant in Mahwah late that month.
He got a gun, shot a night-clerk, now they call him Johnny 99.
Wavin' his gun around, and threatenin' to blow his top.
Well, the evidence is clear. Gonna let the sentence, son, fit the crime.
Fist fight broke out in the courtroom. They had to drag Johnny's girl away.
His momma stood up and shouted, “Judge, don't take my boy this way!”
Well, son, you got any statement you'd like to make before the bailiff comes to forever take you away?
It was more 'n all this that put that gun in my hand.
New Jersey turnpike ridin' on a wet night. 'Neath the refinery's glow.
License, registration, I ain't got none.
Mister state trooper, please don't stop me.
Maybe you got a kid. Maybe you got a pretty wife. The only thing that I got's been both'rin' me my whole life.
In the wee-wee hours, your mind gets hazy.
The radio's jammed up with talkshow stations.
Well, if I could, I swear I know just what I'd do.
I ain't never gonna ride in no used car again.
I wish he'd just hit the gas and let out a cry.
Dad, he sweats the same job from mornin' to morn'.
Me, I walk home on the same dirty streets where I was born.
The sound's echo'in all down Michigan Avenue.
Well, I had the carburetor, baby, cleaned and checked.
Propped her to in my backyard on concrete blocks for a new clutch plate, and a new set of shocks.
Gotta find a gas station, gotta find a payphone.
This turnpike sure is spooky at night when you're all alone.
Gotta hit the gas, baby, I'm runnin' late.
The boss don't dig me, so he put me on the nightshift.
Underneath the overpass, trooper hits his party light switch.
With them big brown eyes that make your heart stand still.
5 A.M., oil pressure's sinkin' fast.
I got three more hours, but I'm coverin' ground.
Radio's jammed to with gospel stations. Lost souls callin' long-distance salvation.
Last night, I dreamed that I was a child.
Out where the pines grow, wild and tall.
I was trying to make it home through the forest before the darkness falls.
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path.
With the devil snappin' at my heels, I broke through the trees.
There in the night, my father's house stood.
The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms.
But I ran 'til I fell shaking in his arms.
I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart will never again, sir, pull us from each other's hearts.
From out on the road, I could see the windows shining in light.
I walked up the steps and stood on the porch.
A woman I didn't recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door.
She said, "I'm sorry, son, but no one by that name lives here anymore."
Shining 'cross this dark highway, where our sins lie unatoned.
He's standin' out on Highway 31.
Still, at the end of every hard day, people find some reason to believe.
Baby, I'll work for you every day.
One day, he up and left her.
And ever since that, she waits down at the end of that dirt road.
Wash the baby in the water. Take away little Kyle's sin.
Take the body to the graveyard. Over him they pray.
Lord, won't you tell us? Tell us, what does it mean?
Congregation gathers down by the riverside. Preacher stands with a Bible.
Congregation gone, the sun sets behind a weepin' willow tree.
I'm a sergeant out of Perrineville Barracks number 8.
I always done an honest job. As honest as I could.
Now, ever since we was young kids, it's been the same come down: I get a call on the shortwave, Franky's in trouble downtown.
It it was any other man, I'd put him straight away. But when it's your brother, sometimes you look the other way.
Nothin' feels better than blood on blood.
Man turns his back on his family, well he just ain't no good.
But them wheat prices kept on droppin', 'til it was like we were gettin' robbed.
The night was like any other. I got a call 'bout quarter to nine.
There was trouble in the roadhouse, out on the Michigan line.
There was a kid lyin' on the floor, lookin' bad, bleedin' hard from his head.
There was a girl cryin' at a table.
I went out and I jumped in my car and I hit the lights.
I must've done a hundred-and-ten through Michigan County that night.
It was out at the crossroads down 'round Willow Bank. Seen a Buick with Ohio plates.
I chased him through those county roads. 'Til a sign said 'Canadian Border five miles from here'.
I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his tail-lights disappear.