Behind the door with no name plate
The lights are low, the deals are late
The gin flows sweet, the morals thin
And every cop knows who to grin

The saints wear suits and carry lead
They buy the law, they count the dead
With bootheels slick in crimson gloss
They make the rules, then double-cross

Bootleg saints with blood in cuffs
They drink their pride from silver puffs
In jazz and smoke, the city bends
Where every favor has its end

The barrel's cold, the whiskey hot
The speakeasy don’t know what it’s got
Till seven men in Valentine red
Lay silent with their secrets bled

Al runs the South, Bugs holds the North
And bullets bloom like spring’s own wrath
They toast to kings with outlaw breath
Then sign their names in afterdeath

[Chorus: The creed]
Bootleg saints, they smile and shoot
Their prayers are poured in dirty loot
The night is long, the jazz is tight
But nothing clean survives the night

There’s no salvation underground
Just smoke and jazz and ticking sound
The priests are paid, the judges blind
And heaven’s just a dotted line

Bootleg saints, the times run dry
The crowd moves on, the heroes lie
And in the bar where legends bled
The jukebox plays for all the dead

God bless the ghosts that wore a grin—
And drowned their sins in bathtub gin