Bruce Springsteen 
 

Highway patrol man 

 
 
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1. My name is Joe Roberts. I work for the state.
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I’m a sergeant out of Perrineville, barracks number eight.
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I always done an honest job, as honest as I could.
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I got a brother named Franky, and Franky ain’t no good. 
 
2. Now, ever since we were young kids, it’s been the same come down.
I get a call on the short-wave, Frankie’s in trouble downtown.
Well, if it was any other man, I’d put him straight away
but when it’s brother, sometimes you look the other way. 
 
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Refr. Yeah, me and Franky laughing and drinking. Nothing feels better than blood on blood.
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Taking turns dancing with Maria as the band played “Night of the Johnstown Flood”.
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I catch him when he’s straying like any brother would.
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Man turns his back on his family, well, he just ain’t no good. 
 
3. Well, Franky went in the army back in nineteen sixty five.
I got a farm deferment, settled down, took Maria for my wife.
But them wheat prices kept on dropping, till it was like getting robbed.
Franky came home in sixty-eight, and me, I took this job. 
 
Refr.2 Yeah, we’re laughing and drinking. Nothing feels better than blood on blood.
Taking turns dancing with Maria as the band played “Night of the Johnstown Flood”.
I catch him when he’s straying, teach him how to walk that line.
Man turns his back on his family, he ain’t no friend of mine. 
 
4. Well, the night was like any other. I got a call about quart to nine.
There was trouble in the roadhouse out on the Michigan line.
There was a kid lying on the floor, looking bad, bleeding hard from his head.
There was a girl crying at a table, and it was Frank, they said. 
 
5. Well, I went out and I jumped in my car and I hit the lights.
Well, I must have done a hundred and ten through Michigan county that night.
It was out on the cross-roads, down around Willow Bank.
Seen a Buick with Ohio plates, behind the wheel was Frank. 
 
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End. Well, I chased him through them county roads,
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till a sign said “Canadian border five miles from here”.
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I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his tail lights disappear. 
 
Refr.