In his memoir he says he didn't learn to drive till pretty late and didn't have a license till his third album. In fact there is a newspaper or magazine article from 1974 or 1975 about David Bowie inviting Bruce to come visit him at the NYC recording studio where Bowie is working on an album (Bowie ended up recording two Bruce songs and releasing one on an album). Bruce finally gets to the studio (from New Jersey) after a combination of hitch hiking and a bus ride. Imagine driving along listening to Springsteen on your cassette player, picking up a hitch hiker and he turns out to be Bruce himself. Bruce even credits his many years of hitch hiking with introducing him to many, many kinds of people he would otherwise never have gotten to meet and talk with about their lives.
2min53 --- THE BOSS STOPS TIME. what the jeff is with the amazingness of this recording! It's the best version I've ever heard! The ghostly reverb is epic, again, Bruce was clearly contorting the space time continuum with his lyrical brilliance! For me he sings this perfectly - and I'm not talking about mere singing technique - he sings it as if his life depends on it. It's bloomin' beautiful. Bruce, The Boss, YOU ARE THE MAN!!! Regards. Someone you inspired to write music X
@@kindnessfirst9670 CAME BACK FROM army/Spain in late summer 78 -fucker just blew me away -still does -first saw him in 81-BIBLICAL IS THE ONLY WORD WORTHY OF THAT NITE-I'M FOREVER CHANGED/BETTER??? TOMMY27
Just how can one man create such musical brilliance,it must be past life stuff,to be so gifted and destined for writing masterpiece after another,and performing them in his own way, making other performers look small.
This song came from a conversation Bruce had one night in New Jersey with a guy about his souped up car and his passion for racing it. Just imagine being that specific guy and hearing your story immortalized. And listened to by millions and millions of people all over the world, decade after decade, for eternity. If he told someone else "that song is about me" no one would probably believe him.
I prefer the more standard lyrics and longer live concert version with the extended piano crescendo, but any way you cut it...this song is still wonderful.
"well come on out now little one and come racing in the streets,well come on out now little one and put your red shoes on,well come on out now little one we'll go dying in the street -what else can we do???"Thanks -moving and timelessly beautiful-the best song you or anyone has written in 50 years-timeless beauty TOMMY27
Those racing in the street's at the end sound similar to the throw it all away's of the The Promise studio outtake from the documentary of the same name.
Probably gearheads, bemoaning the mismatch of "fuelie heads" to a 318. Chevy small-block heads wouldn't fit on a Mopar engine. I went to a trade high school in the 80's. I remember popping the tape in, driving somewhere. It was the album version. One of my buddies was in automotive, as soon as soon as he heard, "I got 69 Chevy with a 396, fuelie heads and four on the floor..." he pointed out, "Ya' can't put fuelie heads on a big-block!" The final lyric at least had matched the manufacturer, Chevy motor to Chevy heads!! Progress! The sizes still wouldn't work. The song isn't "about" cars though. They're a story telling device, a means for the characters' deliverance and connection in life. Hotrodders can get picky about such details though. And Bruce had only become a legal driver in his 20's. Ironic perhaps. Even he laughs about though. Oh well. And Brian Wilson never surfed!
