Not a knife throw from here you can hear the night train passing   That's the sound somebody makes when they're getting away   Leaving next week's hanging jury far behind them   Prisoner only of the choices they have made      Night Train...   Night Train...      Ice cube in a dark drink shines like starlight   The moon is floating somewhere out at sea   On an island in the blur of noise and color   Alcatraz, St. Alina, Patmos and the Chateau D'if      Night Train...   Night Train...      And everyone's an island edged with sand   A temporary refuge where somebody else can stand   Till the sea that binds us like the forced tie of a blood oath   Will wear it down, dissolve it, recombine it      Anyone can die here they do it every day   It doesn't take much effort though it goes against the grain   And the ultimate forgetfulness of violence   Sweeps the landscape like a headlight of a train      Night Train...      Ice cube in a dark drink shines like starlight   Starlight shines like glass shards in dark hair   And the mind's eye tumbles out along the steel track   Fixing every shadow with its stare      Night Train...   Night Train...      And in the absence of a vision there are nightmares   And in the absence of compassion there is cancer   Whose banner waves over palaces and mean streets   And the rhythm of the night train is a mantra