“Thunder Road”: Fifty Years On

Posted: August 9th, 2025 | Filed under: Culture, Music, Rock & Roll Rewind, Ruminations | 10 Comments »

Screen door slams/ Mary’s dress sways/ Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays

It is the opening line of the opening tune of Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 masterwork of an album, “Born To Run.”

A collection of eight short stories no less relevant and seminal than Salinger’s “Nine Stories,” or Joyce’s “Dubliners.”

“Thunder Road.”

My firm belief — subjective of course, not an absolute — it’s the singular greatest teen rock & roll anthem.*

*For Dylan, it’s “A Teenager in Love.” Like I said, subjective.

Which, because rock & roll at its essence is the chronicling of teen angst, a time to begin figuring things out, a longing to escape, a fantasy of hitting the road for new life changing adventure, a meeting THE ONE, a get out of jail card for preternatural high school loneliness, means the song is the great rock anthem.

Roy Orbison singing for the lonely/ Hey that’s me and I want you only

I was thirty when the album and song were released, remember exactly where I heard it for the first time. At my next door neighbor Johnny C’s apartment in the Triangle.

I recall that the spare less than orchestrated opening of the album version gave clearance for the resonant lyrical poesy to hit me like a shot to the solar plexus.

I was immediately in touch with inner Chuck of 16, chunky, insecure, standing in front of a mirror on Saturday night before a party, jowls too full, depressed my shirt was too boring, too tight, and the girl I had a crush on since the 1st grade would be there with someone else.

Don’t turn me home again/ I just can’t face myself alone again

When I listen to song these days a half century later, most always a stripped down version — preferably just Springsteen and keys — it still lays me just as low.

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

Tears appear. More than a few I’ve attended shows would inquire, “Is something wrong?”

Narrowing toward its close, the perceptive brilliance of this verse:

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

Contemplating all this today, the prom a lifetime past, there are still remnants of back then lingering inside the kid. For whom the night never fully busted open, Thunder Road unblocked.

 * * * * *

My first Springsteen show was a somewhat noteworthy one in Louisville’s concert history.

At the Brown on Broadway. Or was it the McCauley then? A rare rock venue at the time.

It was during that strange interlude after Bruce’s career had blossomed. Photo on the cover of Newsweek and Time simultaneously. Manager issues.

Two memories distinctly from the show. High school kid taking tickets says, “Don’t get stoned during the show. Or, they won’t have any more here.”

To which I replied, “If we can’t light up, why would we want to come here anyway?”

I was sitting up close. Of the performance, my memory (faulty it might be) is Springsteen spending a lot of time with his back to the audience. The music too big from the start, never really abating. Too Phil Spector. No ebb and flow. Almost angry.

Ah, but his next time through. At Louisville Gardens. Sublime. One of my favorite shows ever. During one of those teen specific tales, Springsteen ventured into the crowd, partway up a side aisle.

At which moment, I swear it to be true, a girl gets on her knees in front of him and starts pawing his jeans.

Double take from Bruce, “Uh oh, I need to get outta here,” extricating himself.

Any number of times after through the years. As his his tunes, ever genius, became more mature, his subject matter more serious. For me personally less interesting. Shows where he simply wore us down, continuing on when much of the audience’s energy was sapped.

The show at the Palace during the solo “Nebraska” tour, when he chastised the crowd for not being quieter during the acoustic set.

Loved his Broadway gig. A storyteller with more than a little Samuel Clemons inside.

But for me, it always comes to Mary’s porch, Roy Orbison on the box.

— c d kaplan

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