Lyrics to
Shoot Out In Chinatown

This version of Shoot Out In Chinatown was released by The Band in 1971.

Visit the The Band Lyrics profile at Decade Lyrics - it has the Shoot Out In Chinatown lyrics as well as the rest of the songs by The Band.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to The Band or about the 1970s in general.

Trouble on the waterfront
Evil in the air
When the Chinatown patrol came down
To bring a little order there
They came in undercover
To the laundry’s back room
And right there before their eyes
Was a Shanghai saloon

Shoot out in Chinatown
They lined them up against the wall
They’re gonna turn the place upside down
Till you won’t recognize it at all

Streets were wide open
Till the break of dawn
‘Twas Frisco in its heyday
Imported from Hong Kong
For about five dollars
Or one thousand yen
You could gamble and ramble in a brothel
Or take it to the opium den

Shoot out in Chinatown
They nailed up every door
They’re gonna level it to the ground
And close it up for evermore

Confucius had once stated
All across the land
Below the surface, crime and love
They go hand in hand
The fire dragons burn
Buddha’s lost his smile
But swears that we will meet again
In just a little while

Till you won’t recognize it at all

---

Want more lyrics and songs by The Band?

The Band has released many songs over the years besides Shoot Out In Chinatown. The Band released songs from 1968 to 2002 spanning across albums like Music From Big Pink, The Band, Stage Fright, Cahoots, Moondog Matinee, Northern Lights - Southern Cross, Islands, Jericho, High On The Hog, Jubilation, and The Last Waltz. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Band.

If you're a fan of the music of the 1970s looking for more songs from 1971 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Shoot Out In Chinatown by The Band

The lyrics for Shoot Out In Chinatown are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1971 song by The Band. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Shoot Out In Chinatown have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for Shoot Out In Chinatown - The Band and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to Shoot Out In Chinatown by The Band in multiple ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Shoot Out In Chinatown" means the words set to the music of Shoot Out In Chinatown, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Band. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Shoot Out In Chinatown and the lyrics to Shoot Out In Chinatown are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Band who came here looking just for the lyrics to Shoot Out In Chinatown, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

More Songs & Lyrics by The Band

Visit our The Band profile for more The Band songs, lyrics & info!

)