The Jungle Line Lyrics - Joni Mitchell

Rousseau walks on trumpet paths 

safaris to the heart of all that jazz 

through i bars and girders-through wires and pipes 

the mathematic circuits of the modern nights 

through huts, through harlem, through jails and gospel pews 

through the class on park and the trash on vine 

through europe and the deep deep heart of dixie blue 

through savage progress cuts the jungle line 

In a low-cut blouse she brings the beer 

rousseau paints a jungle flower behind her ear 

those cannibals-of shuck and jive 

they'll eat a working girl like her alive 

with his hard-edged eye and his steady hand 

he paints the cellar full of ferns and orchid vines 

and he hangs a moon above a five-piece band 

he hangs it up above the jungle line 

The jungle line, the jungle line 

screaming in a ritual of sound and time 

floating, drifting on the air-conditioned wind 

and drooling for a taste of something smuggled in 

pretty women funneled through valves and smoke 

coy and bitchy, wild and fine 

and charging elephants and chanting slaving boats 

charging, chanting down the jungle line 

There's a poppy wreath on a soldier's tomb 

there's a poppy snake in a dressing room 

poppy poison-poppy tourniquet 

it slithers away on brass like mouthpiece spit 

and metal skin and ivory birds 

go steaming up to rousseau's vines 

they go steaming up to brooklyn bridge 

steaming, steaming, steaming up the jungle line 

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