lawless avenues

papa hit him

mama kissed him

made him go to catechism

with the sisters in their black and white

and all the time those city streets

were teaching him another kind of wisdom

when to run and when to fight

up at the playground after school

listening to tales of the prison system

and those lawless avenues

dawn on a half darkened street

a child's footsteps repeat

and something there turns them

down those lawless avenues

silent joe went down so bad

he was the strongest fighter the avenues had

stabbed in the chest he went down swinging

someone from some other part of town

no one even seen it coming down

and you don't hear no church bells ringing

and in the violent night the police light

sweeps across the lots and the yards

following those lawless avenues

down on a half darkened street

armies advance and retreat

and struggle to take control

from those lawless avenues

manuelito's sister rosa

ran away with a surfer from hermosa

manuelito

cuida a rosa

hay mira como estan las cosas!

(manuelito take care of rosa

look at how things are)

but who could blame her after she saw

every boy die who could have gotten close to her

rosa es joven u solo quiere

ver la belleza del mundo

(rosa is young and only wants

to see the beauty of the world)

manuel said: you gotta fight for what you want in this life"