"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