Standard (EADGBE)

Intro

 In the heat of the summer

When the pavements were burning

 The soul of a city was ravaged in the night

 After the city sun was sinkin'

Now no one knows how it started

why the windows were shattered

But deep in the dark, someone set the spark

 And then it no longer mattered.

Down the streets they were rumbling

All the tempers were ragin

Oh, where, oh, where are the white silver tongues

 Who forgot to listen to the warnings?

On and On come the angry

No longer following reason

And all the stores were the target now

 Where just the other day they were buyin

Drunk with the memory of the ghetto

Drunk with the lure of the looting

And the memory of the uniforms shoving with their sticks

 Asking, "Are you looking for trouble?"

"No, no, no," moaned the mayor.

"It's not the way of the order.

 "Oh stay in your homes, please leave us alone

 "We'll be glad to talk in the morning."

"For shame, for shame," wrote the papers.

"Why the hurry to your hunger?

"Now the rubble's resting on your broken streets

 "So you see what your rage has unraveled."

Baricades sadly were risin

Bricks were heavily flyin

And the loudspeaker drowned like a whisperin' sound

 when compared to the angered emotions

And when the fury was over

And the Shame was replacing the anger.

So wrong, so wrong, but we've been down so long

 And we had to make somebody listen

 In the heat of the summer......