Club Down

Turn the lights off, they done shut the club down

Shut the club down, shut the, shut the club down

Turn the lights off, they done shut the club down

Shut the club down, shut the, shut the club down

The schoolyard reeks of sewage, broken pipes, broken promise

The thin man staggers lucid for this time of night

Drying vomit dangles from the beard, step, mumble, shuffle, trip

But the trajectory is clear, he's headed for the covered steps

Tut, tut, it looks like rain

He remembers A. A. Milne each time the sky is this kind of grey

That or his favorite film, Gene Kelly

Leaping Technicolor through the fray and feeling glorious

The story is an allegory for his days, but night is coming now

Vials snap, aluminum sounds

Fibers slap as drops descend on tall cans

It's all hands on deck to chase the pain away

Dealers rockin' parkas with plenty pockets for product

The money, horrors, the logic and babies holler from colic

The symphony is tectonic, it shifts as the Earth is settlin'

Precious metals are mined

And a million minds have been meddlin' with time

In the hopes of getting a golden noose for the neck

Golden goose from a fairy tale, shittin' Fabergé eggs

Here snitches sh*t bricks, then quick to talk Pig Latin

That black dart too slick for that kid tappin' a window

While lookin' over his shoulder, stop lookin' over your shoulder

You're never caught from behind as long as you keep movin' forward

They long for the sleep like they mortal, these zombies

But they got this portal in their minds

And the molecules get rewired every trip they takin' through time

And they trippin' nightly, the blacks of the eyes igniting

The pits in the backyard biting, the cats in the trashcan fighting

The feeling of guns pealing like bells in a telltale reeling

Of bodies losing they feeling and falling down and the ceiling

Is black from the smoke that's rising, the scent is just so enticing

Descent is a small price for the right to live out your vices, now

Turn the lights off, they done shut the club down

Shut the club down, shut the, shut the club down

And every night after the club it goes down

Plenty, plenty, mo' rounds, bodies, bodies on the ground

On Broadway or Main Street they all stumble out

To a dozen pairs of hands pullin' bottles from they mouths

Hotties hardly walk now, everybody passed out

In the backseat of the taxi, so they never heard a sound

It's the city and the city and you only see one

And it all looked pretty when it all begun

But the shit has got to balance on the barrel of a gun

All the money in the world ain't gonna stop none of

That gangsta shit, that gangsta shit

The whole world lovin' that gangsta shit

Can't change this shit, it's dangerous

But it really ain't nuttin' to a gangsta

*****, what you know about that? Don't act like a newbie

New D boys get jacked, what you need is a New Jack Swing

And a new truly discerning taste for the base, like a foodie

Harmony's cruelly high when it's on his step

Stepped on dope is a safety net

And the dope fiends cry but they don't regret

Everyone get high, go out 'til they

Turn the lights off, they done shut the club down

Shut the club down, shut the, shut the club down

Why you fightin' all the shit that make the world go 'round?

World go 'round, world, world go 'round

Turn the lights off, they done shut the club down

Shut the club down, shut the, shut the club down

Turn the lights off, they done shut the club down

Shut the club down, shut the, shut the club down

It's the city and the city and you only see one

And it all looked pretty when it all begun

But the shit has got to balance on the barrel of a gun

All the money in the world ain't gonna stop none of

That gangsta sh*t, that gangsta sh*t

The whole world lovin' that gangsta sh*t

Can't change this sh*t, it's dangerous

But it really ain't nuttin' to a gangsta

Got the twenties and the fifties wrapped up under all the ones

Two for twenty, five for fifty, you could move a couple tons

You could put it in the blood or you could put it in the lungs

But, whatever you cough up, remember that it all begun with

That gangsta sh*t, that gangsta sh*t

The whole world lovin' that gangsta sh*t

Can't change this sh*t, it's dangerous

But it really ain't nuttin' to a gangsta