ZERO AND BLIND TERRY

Live 23 Jul 1973 (early show) version

[Spoken intro:] This is gonna be uh, a sad story. The Skulls met the Pythons.

One, two, three, four

The Skulls they met the Pythons down at the First Street station
Alliances have been made in alleyways all across the nation
These boys live off the milk of a silver jet and the love of sweet young women
And the Pythons are down from old Englishtown and they're looking to do some living
The leader of the Pythons is a kid they just call Zero
Terry's dad says, "These kids are some kind of monsters"
Terry says, "No pop they're just heroes"

Well Zero and Terry they found the love that burns like wildfire
Terry's daddy understood that Zero was no good, a child, a thief and a liar
So from out of the darkness that breaks the dawn Zero rode like twilight
He said, "Tonight's the night, blind Terry, come on, Terry come on, tonight is the night"

And they ran like reindeers through the streets
Like tomorrow the earth will catch on fire
Terry's dad he saw some troopers to kill Zero and bring Terry back
??? and crawled up in the night ??? firelight
Ohhh that's right
Oh that's alright

Snow-white troopers from the council of crime rode silver foxes through Terry's field
They met the Pythons down on Route 9 but they refused to yield
Now the Pythons fought with guns and the troopers with swords like light
Zero and Terry they ran away as the gang fought all through the night

Well now some folks say that they got away, others say they were caught and brought back
Still those young pilgrims to this day go to that spot down by the railroad tracks
Where the troopers met the Pythons, now old timers say on some hot August night
If you look hard enough, if you try, you'll see Zero and Terry and all the Pythons ??? the streets in the sky
Just ??? the streets in the sky, in the sky, in the sky

Info

The above lyrics are for the live 23 Jul Aug 1973 (early show) performance of ZERO AND BLIND TERRY at Max's Kansas City in New York City, NY, during what is considered the Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. Tour.

Bruce Springsteen and his band played six nights, two shows each night, from 18 to 23 Jul 1973 at Max's Kansas City in New York City, NY. These were double-bill shows, with The Wailers (led by Bob Marley) opening and Springsteen and his band headlining. This was The Wailers' first-ever USA tour, which had started the week before with a 6-night (12-show) headlining stint in Boston, MA.

Promotional ad for the July 1973 six-night stand at Max's Kansas City, New York City, NY
(Taken from Brucebase)

One of the twelve shows (exact date remains unknown) was played almost exclusively to record executives and invited journalists. A review of this show was written by Lorraine O'Grady for the Village Voice, but went unpublished at the time as the editor did not believe either Springsteen or Marley would make it. The article was published in 2010 in Steven Kasher's book Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll. In the article, O'Grady mentions that WILD BILLY'S CIRCUS STORY and ZERO AND BLIND TERRY were played on that show.

References

Some of the above information is taken from Brucebase.

Available Versions

List of available versions of ZERO AND BLIND TERRY on this website:

Page last updated: 24 Apr 2018