Blackout77

"I was working two murders on the four phones On my desk at police headquarters, when it suddenly happened For the first few seconds I didn't give it any thought "What the Hell" I told myself "They'll come back on" I then turned in my chair Looked out the window in the direction of Wall Street The financial district, the World Trade Center And the Brooklyn Bridge Everything was pitch black 'My God', I remembered sayin' 'That's a blackout'" In the heart of the city that never sleeps They took a bite of the apple And spat it out on the street A lightning struck on the powerlines And the skyline was painted black Sign for jokers and anarchists Burning buildings, light it up again Baseball game at the Shea Stadium Ended in the bottom of the sixth inning A lightning struck on the powerlines And the skyline was painted black In the shadows of sin A break in history Panic attacks on Wall Street A sense of freedom to the under class You have to fight your way up through the dark Guided by thousand fires in the street For my whole life I didn't know If I even really existed But I do People are starting to notice And who's laughing now? "Where were you when the lights went out?" "The lights went out, I was in the movies and seeing This Side of Midnight. And it was a terrific movie and a great sexy scene And it suddenly blacked out" "Less than an hour after the electric light failed Individual New Yorkers in most neighborhoods Were directing traffic But in the worst slums of the city The light of mindless violence lit up the sky As the blackout divided the town into two societies Separate and unequal In the Bronx, in Harlem and South Jamaica And Brooklyn many of the have-nots abandoned Whatever restraint had kept them in check Tens of thousands of poor became A disorganized army of the night" "The lights went out at 9:30 And about there was a dead silence For possibly three to five minutes And suddenly a yell came up from the street The sound of, of I guess it must have been a thousand voices just Just at a scream of, of, exhaustion I don't know, really And I think there's gonna be Hell to pay tonight" "It was not only the hardened criminals The known felons of Spanish Harlem Had joined the human locust sloth The cover of total darkness allowed the lowest qualities Of previously peaceful people to surface" There's violence in the streets tonight Shooting arrows through the sky Who gives a fuck about tomorrow? Because tonight I really feel alive "Thousands of East Harlem residents have taken To the streets in an ocean of looting And burning that shocked many of their neighbors Well, how did the media respond to this blackout? Did they help or did they enflame the problems? We'll examine that issue in just a moment" A lightning struck on the powerlines And the skyline was painted black Sign for jokers and anarchists To burn buildings, light it up again