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Thunder Road -- Bruce Springsteen

Guest poem submitted by Mark Penney:
(Poem #1853) Thunder Road
 The screen door slams
 Mary's dress waves
 Like a vision she dances across the porch
 As the radio plays
 Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
 Hey, that's me, and I want you only
 Don't turn me home again
 Cause I just can't face myself alone again

 Don't run back inside, darling,
 You know just what I'm here for
 So you're scared and you're thinking
 That maybe we ain't that young anymore
 Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
 You're not a beauty, but hey, you're all right
 Oh, and that's all right with me.

 You can hide 'neath the 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
 Well I'm no hero, that's understood
 All the redemption I can offer, girl,
 Is beneath this dirty hood
 With a chance to make it good somehow
 Baby, what else can we do now

 Except roll down the window
 And let the wind blow back your hair
 The night's busting open
 These two lanes will take us anywhere
 We've got one last chance to make it real
 To trade in these wings on some wheels
 Climb in back
 Heaven's waiting on down the tracks

 Oh, come take my hand
 We're riding out tonight to case the promised land
 Oh, Thunder Road, oh, Thunder Road
 Lying out there like a killer in the sun
 I know it's late, but we can make it if we run
 Oh, Thunder Road,
 Sit tight, take hold, Thunder Road.

 Well I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk
 And my car's out back if you're ready to take that long walk
 From the front porch to my front seat
 The door's open but the ride it ain't free
 And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken
 But tonight we'll be free
 All the promises will be broken

 There were ghosts in the eyes
 Of all the boys you sent away
 They haunt this dusty beach road
 In the skeleton frames of burnt-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 can 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
 And I'm pulling out of here to win.
-- Bruce Springsteen
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  some, but by no means all, song
lyrics work when you look at them independently as poems.  This is one of
the ones that does, in a very big way.

True, Springsteen's "story songs" are often too wordy, but he has a real
talent for indelible images.  And this song is fairly overflowing with them.
In my opinion, the ragged length of the lines (some of them actually have
too many syllables to fit the music!) and the irregular rhythm and rhyme
actually add something in this case -- a certain restless drive, that
underpins what we think of the main character.  (Listening to this song, you
keep feeling like it's going to settle into a regular ballad structure, with
abab rhymes and so on, but it never quite does.  For example, the "Thunder
Road" part in the middle looks like it's going to be a chorus, but ... nope,
it never comes back.  The whole thing almost feels improvised, a sort of
rush of disconnected thoughts.)

On the surface, it's just a testosterone-laden teenaged boy, trying to go on
a ride with, and maybe sleep with, a girl.  But Springsteen's approach to
the main character is interestingly divided -- simultaneously identifying
with this kid, but also keeping some objective distance.  (Look at that
virtuosic last verse for evidence:  what kid, trying to impress a girl,
would be thinking all those things at once?  It all of a sudden turns so
bitter and cynical -- "They haunt this dusty beach road / In the skeleton
frames of burnt-out Chevrolets" -- it's clear we're looking at the kid not
only through his own eyes, but through the author's as well.)

But my god, the images.  The first four lines are incredible.  And the third
verse.  And the last one.  It's one of those songs that you learn the words
to, because the words themselves are so delicious.

Lastly, you've got to say that the song is a little one-sided.  I'd love to
hear Mary's side of things.  Maybe it'd start something like this:

 A car horn honks
 I look to see who's there
 It's that Bruce again in his '63 Chevy
 And his unkempt hair
 "Dom-do-de-wah" sings Roy,
 "Only the lonely," and this boy.
 What can I do to make him
 Leave me alone and go away again?

Mark

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