Bruce Springsteen Lyrics to Lost in the Flood

The ragamuffiin gunner is returning 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 burning with wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide The hit and run, plead sanctuary, 'neath a holy stone they hide They're breaking beams and crosses with a spastic's reeling perfection nuns run bald through Vatican halls pregnant, pleading 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 gunning that bitch loaded to blasting point He rides head first into a hurricane and disappears into a point And there's nothing left but some blood where the body fell That is, nothing 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 putting 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 shooting up the street And that cat from the Bronx starts letting loose but he gets blown right off his feet And some kid comes blasting 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 saying 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 getting into, or were they just lost in the flood?