Hurricane

Pistol-shots ring out in the barroom night,

Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall,

She sees a bartender in a pool of blood,

Cries out, "My God, they've killed 'em 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've been the champion of the world.

Three bodies lying there does Patty see

And another man named Bello, moving around mysteriously.

"I didn't do it!" he says and he throws up his hands,

"I was only robbing the register, I hope you understand!

I saw them leaving," 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 flashing in the hot New Jersey night.

Meanwhile far away in another part of town,

Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are driving around,

The number one contender for the middleweight crown

Had no idea what kind of 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.

Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the cops,

Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowling around.

He said, "I saw two men running out, they looked like middleweights,

Jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates."

And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head,

Cop said, "Wait a minute, boys, this one's not dead!"

So they took him to the infirmary

And, though this man could hardly see, they told him he could identify the guilty men.

Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in,

They took him to the hospital and they brought him upstairs.

The wounded man looks up through his one, dying eye,

Said, "Why'd you bring him in here for! He ain't the guy!"

Here's 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've been the champion of the world.

Four months later, the ghettoes are in flame,

Rubin's in South America, fighting for his name,

While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game

And the cops are putting the screws to him, looking for somebody to blame.

"Remember that murder that you––happened in a bar?

Remember you said you saw the getaway car?

Think you'd like to play ball with the law?

Think it mighta been that fighter that you saw running that night? Don't forget that you are white."

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure."

The cops said, "A poor boy like you could use a break –

We got you for the motel job and you talking to your friend, Bello,

If you don't wanna have to go back to jail, be a nice fellow.

You'll be doing society a favor,

That son-of-a-bitch is brave and getting braver.

We wanna put his ass in the stir,

We wanna pin this triple murder on him – he ain't no 'Gentleman Jim'."

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch,

But he never did like to talk about it all that much.

"It's my work," he'd say, "and I do it for pay

And, when it's over, just as soon go on my way"––

Up into some paradise

Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice

And ride a horse along the trail,

But then they took him to the jailhouse, where they try to turn a man into a mouse.

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.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried,

The crime was murder one, guess who testified?

––Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied,

The newspapers, they all went along for the ride.

How can the life of such a man

Be in the palm of some fool's hand?

To see him obviously framed

Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game.

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.

Yes, 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've been the champion of the world.