Thunder Road (song)

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For other uses, see Thunder Road (disambiguation).

"Thunder Road"
Song by Bruce Springsteen
From the album Born to Run
Album released	August 25, 1975
Recorded	1975
Genre	Rock
Song Length	4:49
Record label	Columbia / Sony
Producer	Bruce Springsteen and Jon Landau
Track Number	1

"Thunder Road" is a song written and performed by Bruce Springsteen, and the opening track on his 1975 breakthrough album Born to Run. It is consistently ranked as one of Springsteen's greatest songs, and one of the top rock songs of all time.

1 History
2 Lyrics and music
3 Acclaim
4 In Music and Pop Culture
5 Sequel
6 Live performance history
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

The song underwent considerable evolution as it was written, with an early version titled "Wings For Wheels" first performed at The Main Point in Bryn Mawr on February 5th 1975. That phrase would eventually be used in the final version of the lyrics. The original version also mentions a girl named "Christine," "Christina," or "Angelina" (in various versions) rather than the studio homage to "Mary".

[edit] Lyrics and music

The lyrics to "Thunder Road" describe a young woman named Mary, her boyfriend, their hopeless lives and their "one last chance to make it real." Thematically, it reads as a nostalgic companion piece to "Born to Run".

Musically, the song opens with a quiet piano and harmonica introduction, meant, as Springsteen said years later in the Wings For Wheels documentary, as a welcoming to both the track and the album, a signifier that something was about to happen. Eschewing a traditional verse-and-chorus structure, the song's arrangement gradually ramps up in instrumentation, tempo and intensity. The title phrase is not used until the middle section of the song, and then is not used again. Finally, after the closing line there is a saxophone-and-piano duet in the instrumental coda.

In this song, Springsteen mentions Roy Orbison "singing for the lonely" on the radio. Orbison, one of whose best-known songs is "Only the Lonely," was a huge influence on Springsteen.

The song's title comes from the Robert Mitchum film Thunder Road. Springsteen declared that he was somehow inspired from the movie even if, as he says, "I never saw the movie, I only saw the poster in the lobby of the theater."^[1]

[edit] Acclaim

In 2004, it was ranked #1 on the list of the "885 All-Time Greatest Songs" compiled by WXPN (the University of Pennsylvania's public radio station).^[2] Rolling Stone magazine placed it as #86 on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."^[3] The song came in at #226 in Q magazine's list of the "1001 Greatest Songs Ever" in 2003, in which they described the song as "best for pleading on the porch." Julia Roberts, when asked which song lyric described her most accurately, chose "Thunder Road"'s "You ain't a beauty, but hey, you're alright." The song is featured in the book 31 Songs by British author Nick Hornby.

The song remains a fan favorite and live staple to this day. In 1970s concerts, Springsteen sometimes played the song in solo piano versions or as a segue out of some other more dirge-like song such as "Racing in the Street". In concert in the 1980s, the song was often played to close out the first set; the coda was stretched out to showcase E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons, then Clemons and Springsteen would charge at each other from opposite ends of the stage, with Springsteen sliding into Clemons in an embrace. By the late 1990s Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour, "Thunder Road" was played as celebratory from start to finish, with Springsteen pointing to people he knew or to attractive females in the front rows during the extended outro.

[edit] In Music and Pop Culture

"Thunder Road" is a classic rock staple, and has been covered by artists such as Melissa Etheridge, Badly Drawn Boy, Mary Lou Lord^[4] and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy with Tortoise^[5]. Adam Duritz of Counting Crows often sings large portions of the lyrics to "Thunder Road" in the middle of their song "The Rain King."

Badly Drawn Boy also ends his album Born in the UK with the line "if we still don't have a plan, we'll listen to Thunder Road".

In the movie Explorers starring River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke, the name of the space vessel they create out of a Tilt-A-Whirl is "Thunder Road".

In an episode of King of Queens, Doug is seen playing a harmonica and then asking Spence if it "sounded anything like Thunder Road".

[edit] Sequel

Sometime after the release of Born to Run, Springsteen wrote a follow-up to "Thunder Road" called "The Promise", which explicitly mentions the first song by name but reveals a far more pessimistic outlook on the narrator's life and future. Although early studio recordings were never released, "The Promise" gained considerable legend for its 1978 Tour performances; it finally materialized in a re-recorded version on 1999's 18 Tracks.

[edit] Live performance history

"Thunder Road" is one of Springsteen's most performed songs, during the 1974 to 1977 Born to Run tours, "Thunder Road" was always played on piano and ONLY piano with Springsteen with his harmonica opening and ending, an example is found on Hammersmith Odeon '75. Not until later in the tour did "Thunder Road" make a complete full-band come back. Later in the 1978 tour "Thunder Road" made more appearances and usually opened with Springsteen and why he wrote the song, the song continued to be performed on rock with the full-band until 1992 to 1993's "Other Band" Tour where it appeared on acoustic guitar and a haunting organ backing in the background; another example is found on the 1993 concert video and album.

The song then disappeared from Springsteen concerts until emerging again in 1999 in the Reunion Tour and this time warmly greeted by fans as it always had been in concerts, an example is yet again found in the 2001 release "Live in New York City". Continuing to be heard on The Rising Tour as on Live in Barcelona, the song disappeared and did not emerge again until the 2007-2008 Magic Tour.