Hurricane

Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night

Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall

She sees the bartender in a pool of blood

Cries out "My God they killed them all!"

Here comes the story of the Hurricane,

The man the authorities came to blame

For something that he never done

Put in a prison cell

but one time he could-a been

The champion of the world

Three bodies lyin’ there does Patty see

And another man named Bello

movin’ around mysteriously

“I didn’t do it,” he says

and he throws up his hands

“I was only robbin’ the register

I hope you understand

I saw them leavin’,” he says, and he stops

“One of us had better call up the cops”

And so Patty calls the cops

And they arrive on the scene

with their red lights flashin’

In the hot New Jersey night

Meanwhile, far away in another part of town

Rubin Carter and a couple

of friends are drivin’ around

Number one contender for the middleweight crown

Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down

When a cop pulled him over

to the side of the road

Just like the time before

and the time before that

In Paterson that’s just the way things go

If you’re black you might as well

not show up on the street

’Less you wanna draw the heat

Four months later, the ghettos are in flame

Rubin’s in South America, fightin’ for his name

While Arthur Dexter Bradley’s

still in the robbery game

And the cops are puttin’ the screws to him

lookin’ for somebody to blame

“Remember that murder that happened in a bar?”

“Remember you said you saw the getaway car?”

“You think you’d like to play ball with the law?”

“Think it might-a been that fighter

that you saw runnin’ that night?”

“Don’t forget that you are white”

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, “I’m really not sure”

Cops said, “A poor boy like you could use a break

We got you for the motel job

and we’re talkin’ to your friend Bello

Now you don’t wanta have to go back to jail

be a nice fellow

You’ll be doin’ society a favor

That sonofabitch is brave and gettin’ braver

We want to put his ass in stir

We want to pin this triple murder on him

He ain’t no Gentleman Jim”

All of Rubin’s cards were marked in advance

The trial was a pig-circus

he never had a chance

The judge made Rubin’s witnesses

drunkards from the slums

To the white folks who watched

he was a revolutionary bum

And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger

No one doubted that he pulled the trigger

And though they could not produce the gun

The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed

And the all-white jury agreed

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties

Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise

While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell

An innocent man in a living hell

That’s the story of the Hurricane

But it won’t be over till they clear his name

And give him back the time he’s done

Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been

The champion of the world