serai

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Today is The Boss's birthday.

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

The screen door slams
Mary's dress sways
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
I just can't face myself alone again

Don't run back inside, darlin'
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 ain't a beauty
But hey, you're alright
And that's alright with me...

You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a saviour to rise from these streets
Well now 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
Hey what else can we do now?
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow
Back your hair
Well, the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We 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, oh, come take my hand
We're riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh-oh Thunder Road oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late
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 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
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll 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 burned out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at your feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone
On the wind
So Mary climb in
It's town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win

I was fourteen the year Born to Run came out. Starting my sophomore year at a Catholic girls' school, shy and sheltered and knowing almost nothing of the gringo world, the album hit me like a ton of bricks. This song especially, the opener, made an enormous impression on me, one very rarely rivalled by any other music. From the first gentle, tinkling piano notes, so reminiscent of the pretty little music boxes that every young girl had on her nightstand in those days (mine was pink and had a ballerina in it), through the amazing first stanzas quoted above, through the rising passion of the verses and culminating in that intense, orgasmic door-slam of a chord that goes roaring off into the night like the singer's dark, inviting Chevy - it was a revelation, an invitation to innocence to cut loose the ties of the past and fulfill its longings via the Thunder Road: passion, speed, love, and a cry of ecstasy.

I still and will always maintain that this song is the most romantic I've ever heard in my life. The open longing, Springsteen's rough, throaty voice, and more than anything, the absolute clarity with which he sees his Mary more often than not brings a tear to my eye. That line - "you ain't a beauty but hey, you're alright" - I cannot describe what it does to me. That he sees and knows she is no princess in a fairy tale, just the girl he's come to see, and yet he still describes her as "a vision", clutches my heart every time. From the first time I heard this song, I've longed for someone to see me in just that way - honestly, completely, and still fully in love. *sigh*

Happy birthday, Bruce. What a wonderful gift you gave us. Please, Mr. Springsteen, do rock on.