Bruce Springsteen Manager on ‘Thunder Road’ Lyric Confusion

Bruce Springsteen fans have been on fire with one question the past few days: What are the real opening lyrics to “Thunder Road”? It all started on July 3, when the New York Time‘Trump chief scribe and political reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted a line from the boss’s epic Born to run opener while waiting to see the return of Springsteen on Broadway. “A screen door slams, Mary’s dress rocks,” she wrote, sparking days of arguing among Springsteen fans over whether the last word was “swing” or “waves.” Even E Street Band guitarist Stevie Van Zandt stepped in – if only Tweeter, “Oy vey! Get that shit of Bruce lyrics out of my feed! »The Los Angeles Time released an investigation (yes, really) on July 15, finding deviations from the real lyrics: While the original Born to run booklet, reissue booklet, Springsteen website and Bruce Springsteen: Songs all have the lyrics as “waves”, writes Springsteen in his memoir, Born to run, “‘The screen door slams, Mary’s dress swings’ – that’s a good opening line.” Additionally, the boss’s handwritten lyrics on “Thunder Road,” auctioned for $ 62,500 in 2019, also say “sways”.

The question became such a flashpoint that it reached The New Yorkereditor-in-chief David Remnick, who emailed longtime Springsteen manager Jon Landau for a July 17 column on “cultural comments” on the confusion of lyrics. “The word is ‘swings’,” Landau replied, definitely. “That’s how he wrote it in his original notebooks, that’s how he sang it on ‘Born to Run’, in 1975, that’s how he sang it. has always sung in thousands of concerts, and that’s how he sings it right now on Broadway. Any typos in Bruce’s official material will be corrected. And, in a crowd dig the “waves “, Landau added:” And, by the way, ‘dresses’ don’t know how to ‘wander’. “

Former Springsteen manager Mike Appel, who worked with the rocker for Born to run, alright, telling LA Time he sent the lyrics to the US Copyright Office as “sways”. “I heard him sing it I don’t know how many times, and it was always ‘sways’,” he said.

Two managers from Springsteen – the only more definitive answer might be a decree from the boss himself. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t strong supporters in the “wave” camp either. Springsteen scholar Caryn Rose, who ranked all of the Boss’s songs for Vulture and wrote the 2012 book Raise Your Hand: An American Springsteen Fan’s Adventures in Europe, said to Time she “can’t believe it’s even debatable” and that the line is “vague”. “The matter is settled,” she added, noting that the question comes up from time to time in fan circles. And Melissa Etheridge, who covered the song and sang it with Springsteen himself, said she also uses “waves” – on the boss’s advice. “I even talked about the lyrics with Bruce. We practiced the song and divided ourselves up who would sing what. In the middle he said, ‘Dude, there’s no chorus in this song! The words go on forever! ‘ », She remembers, of her 1995 MTV unplugged performance. “But he would have told me if it weren’t for” waves. ‘ He would have said, ‘You sing badly, honey.’ So it’s definitely ‘waves’. But Springsteen has yet to tell both sides that they sang badly. Perhaps we can expect an answer during Springsteen’s performance at the Central Park “Homecoming” concert in New York City on August 21 – when he will surely leave some fans alone for words he didn’t say. .