Remembering Forgotten Songs!
Garland Jeffreys
Wild in the Streets
In the heat of the summer
Better call up the plumber
And turn on the street pump
To cool me off
With your newspaper writers
And your big crime fighters
You still need a drugstore
To cure my cough
Running wild in the streets
We got a gang called Shady
And a midnight lady
And two transvestites
To beat the band
You better not touch us
You best believe us
Your teenage Johnny's
Gonna be a man
Runnin' wild in the streets
Mrs. America
Tell me how is your favorite son?
Do you really care
What he has done?
Runnin' wild in the streets
In 1973, Garland Jeffreys released his first album, the self-titled Garland Jeffreys, on Atlantic Records. Around the same time Atlantic also released a single, Wild in the Streets, that was not included on the album. Jeffreys wrote the song after hearing about a pre-teen rape and murder in the Bronx. Dr. John played clavinet and helped arrange the song, with backing from guitarist David Spinozza, drummer Rick Marotta, the Brecker Brothers on horns and David Peel on background vocals. Back in 1973, I bought Garland Jeffreys' Wild in the Streets single after hearing it in a record store in Dayton, Ohio.
In 1977, Jeffreys released an excellent album called Ghostwriter and Wild in the Streets was included on that record. Many progressive FM stations began to play Wild in the Streets. Having been such a big fan of the original Wild in the Streets single back in 1973, I was overjoyed to see that such a great song had finally achieved popularity from the listening public.
