Joni Mitchell - The Jungle Line Lyrics
Rousseau walks on trumpet pathsSafaris to the heart of all that jazzThrough I bars and girders-through wires and pipesThe mathematic circuits of the modern nightsThrough huts, through harlem, through jails and gospel pewsThrough the class on park and the trash on vineThrough europe and the deep deep heart of dixie blueThrough savage progress cuts the jungle lineIn a low-cut blouse she brings the beerRousseau paints a jungle flower behind her earThose cannibals-of shuck and jiveTheyll eat a working girl like her aliveWith his hard-edged eye and his steady handHe paints the cellar full of ferns and orchid vinesAnd he hangs a moon above a five-piece bandHe hangs it up above the jungle lineThe jungle line, the jungle lineScreaming in a ritual of sound and timeFloating, drifting on the air-conditioned windAnd drooling for a taste of something smuggled inPretty women funneled through valves and smokeCoy and *****y, wild and fineAnd charging elephants and chanting slaving boatsCharging, chanting down the jungle lineTheres a poppy wreath on a soldiers tombTheres a poppy snake in a dressing roomPoppy poison-poppy tourniquetIt slithers away on brass like mouthpiece spitAnd metal skin and ivory birdsGo steaming up to rousseaus vinesThey go steaming up to brooklyn bridgeSteaming, steaming, steaming up the jungle line
