the door's open, but the ride it ain't free...

I promised myself a post on the Boss. Or rather a song of his that every one in their right and wrong minds should know the lyrics to: the classic Thunder Road.

The thing about the truly greatest songs (or any other work of art for that matter) is that they draw us in and place us right in the middle of all the action, make us a part of it, we are in it, we are it. In Thunder Road, Springsteen is not just singing about his dreams, his love, or imploring his friend, it is our promises, and hopes that he is vocalizing.

The Born to Run album is definitive Springsteen - a masterpiece, and for all its heartache, it is so full of hope, unlike his later introspective and working-class-themed albums. Guess it is the youthfulness of it all. Happiness after all is just being with a girl/boy, having a car, and an open road. Let later albums (and growing older) question the direction of it all...but there's no need to think about that now,... right?

Thunder Road is the classic anthem for the dreamer, lover, and escapist in all of us. It is the opening song of the album, and is kind of like its vision statement. It asks of us a simple, yet crucial question 'Are you willing to take a chance?', and carries a hope, and sometimes urges, that we hold on to the dream -

'Well the night's bustin' open, these two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels'

This is a restless song, this is the yearning of youth, on the borderline of adulthood, wanting to grow up and escape, but still holding on to youthful aspirations - taking only the guitar, the car, and his girl on the journey. Yes, the only things that matter.

(So, what is in your backpack?)

And only Springsteen can make you see how simple and how incredibly hard it is to take that chance - in his phrasing of just a word:

'And my car's out back if you're ready to take that lo- -onng walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride it ain't free...'


The lyrics are devastating, romantic, and encapsulate you in its redemption, the dream of a promised land that's at the end of this road. And all the fears that come with it, 'so you're scared, and you're thinkin' maybe we ain't young anymore'. Oh yeah...

For without risks, there are no rewards. And there is that promise of a better tomorrow, but no time to waste:

'You can hide 'neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets'

'All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow...'

Everyone knows what it's like to have these dreams, whose hearts we break to get there, the desperation of knowing, and not knowing. There are layers within the words that you get to glimpse with every listen, it's a fluid storyline, what you see depends on where you are on this journey. The lack of specificity in these beautiful lyrics makes this song not just Springsteen's, this is your song.

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone on the wind, 


So Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers, I'm pulling out of here to win

If that's not poetry, I don't know what is.