Dick Tracy

Work you over for fifty cents, Charlie
You're just lucky I don't have any hardware with me
Darn lucky, I tell ya

It was gambling that brought the rising star of mobster Big Boy Caprice to zenith and brought crime buster Dick Tracy onto his scent
Caprice made his bones in the small-time extortion and protection rackets on the South Side
And his prosecuted vendettas with the ruthless tenacity that earned him a reputation for cunning, murderous unpredictability, and an unwillingness to forgive, which is remarkable even on that seamy side of town

Business owners who failed to cough up Big Boy's exorbitant demands for tribute were hastily extinguished
And many a small-time operator learned the hard way with the Mob not rough stuff meant by territory, a school lesson that ended with a student grasped in a pair of cement overshoes

Dick Tracy, look out crooks you better break out
'Cause Tracy's chilling on a stake out
He's in town and he's hunting Big Boy Caprice
Tracy's on the C-A-S-E
It's no win if you think about doing crime
Tracy have you doing time (Word)
When you dealing with hoods like Flattop
He roam solo, he doesn't need a backup cop
He just talks in the radio that's on his wrist
Pat Patton'll hook 'em up quick
He makes his move but suckas is in his way for pay
Dick Tracy don't play

Caprice would scratch, claw, double-cross and slaughter his way to the top of an ugly heap
And by the time he was there, his greedy eye would wander to the spoils of national control of the rackets
He was surrounded by around-the-clock assortment of goons, pimps, shills, confidants, tricksters, flim-flam men, and lead-jawed gunmen who responded to his every urge

Dick Tracy, a real man no phony
He better watch out for Breathless Mahoney
'Cause this girl's sexy and I'm talking 'bout super hot
And she working on Tracy's soft spot
Tess Trueheart is the one he's in love with
Gotta keep a cool head so he don't flip
But Tracy's too tough for that
He gotta get Pruneface, Numbers and the Rodent pack
Influence and the thugs at the Ritz understand
This Tracy don't quit 'til he gets his man
And I'm talking 'bout them
Dick Tracy's in the back again

By degrees, his empire grew
An empire that fashioned itself into an unseemly
Replica of a king's court, where a jester could be put to death
With the sole wink of a Neapolitan eyelid
And aware he could bring a whole neighborhood to its knees
With a particularly unpleasant visit from one of the squads of amici di amici, of friends of friends
The territory came into control of an iron hand who was not called the 'Carnival of Death' for nothing
And Big Boy Caprice had given this sobriquet a vicious ring many times over
It seemed that nothing would stop him

Dick Tracy not the one you want to cross, boss
Step to him and you'll be needing smelling salts
'Cause he's the C-O-P on the J-O-B
So don't M-E-S-S with T-R-A-C-why?
'Cause Tracy's gonna rock the place
Put away Shoulders, The Plank, Little Face
And any other crook that wanna break ill
You gotta problem, Dick Tracy's the bill
He found a kid that they call Shakesy J.R
A good kid, the boy's gonna go far
Sam Catchem is another on the right side
But if you're not, then fool, you better run and hide from Dick Tracy

Not politicians, not union bosses, not racketeers, not the treachery of its fellow serpents
Not the heady aroma of power-lust would be enough to undo this model of pure evil
Nothing but Dick Tracy, whose name had come up in regard to the office of Police Chief on the South Side
Tracy had handled the likes of Caprice before and seen the hideous [?] of other hoodlums end up behind bars
But here was a king whose calling card was widowhood and a proven river of scarlet that drained itself in the city sewers

Dick Tracy is coming to your town soon
Wiping out all the mugs and the goons
So if you're wrong you better move to some other place
Or stay the hell out his face
'Cause he don't joke
When it comes to crime, he go for broke
Even if the pistol smoke
He gets the job done, the man don't run
Talk about bad, Dick Tracy's the one
Untouchable, the unstoppable
(Tracy's on the take)
Tha's impossible
Supercop is no crook's friend
Dick Tracy's in the streets again

He would create a reign of terror and a flow of blood that would not be stopped by anything but Dick Tracy and the nation's boldest crime busters
'Ha, ha, ha,' the gangsters laughed at headlines that promised a head-on war from the Attorney General's office
Cackles were heard again in mafia back parlors at the mention of Attorney General's Fletcher's campaign for the mayoral office
A campaign that Caprice and his underbosses, Flattop, Pruneface, Influence and Mumbles, would conspire to bring to an abrupt halt and give the would-be officeholder an involuntary dirt nap
Focus of the tentacles of Caprice and his hideous family was gambling

The glamour of [?] that kept the masses hostage to a dream and eternal slavery to the hope that this week, this month their lucky number would come up, a hope that somehow never materialized
Roulette, Craps, Black Jack, Keno, the ponies and the puppies were all wrenched and pulled like the strings of a marionette with a shiny visage by Caprice and his allies
The city, with its hopeless masses, hooked like dope fiends on the game of the moment waltzed to the gangsters' tune and kept the parade of corrupt officials on the payroll to ensure that the waltz played on

One who dared contradict them was club owner Lips Manlis, proprietor of the Club Ritz
Big Boy Caprice wanted in; Manlis wouldn't yield
Lips was soon separated from the living in a lavish funeral and Caprice took over the Club Ritz
And with it came Manlis' former moll, the songbird that would become [?] Breathless Mahoney
Breathless would not be allowed to mourn long, for the party would go on every night as it always did
Would Tracy drop by to bring it to a halt?
When would gunfire rival the popping of champagne corks?
For wherever Caprice roamed blood would find him sooner or later (Sooner or later, sooner or later, sooner or later...)

Calling Dick Tracy
Calling Dick Tracy
Calling Dick Tracy
Calling Dick Tracy

The police are losing
The police are losing
The police are losing
The police are losing

Calling Dick Tracy
Calling Dick Tracy
Calling Dick Tracy
Calling Dick Tracy

All right, y'can all go home now
Show's over